Stmmcan  J>tate£uien 


SAMUEL  ADAMS 


BY 


JAMES  K.  HOSMER 

PROFESSOR    IN  WASHINGTON  UNIVERSITY 
ST.  LOUIS,  MO. 


BOSTON 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

New  York:    11   East  Seventeenth   Street 

fe#&  ^amnribge 

1885 


Copyright,  1885, 
BY  JAMES  K.  HOSMER. 

iz  &  ^<Z/ 

reserued. 


JV«s*,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


To 
MRS.  MARY  HEMENWAY, 

CTfjt's  33ooR, 

UNDERTAKEN  AT  HEE  SUGGESTION,  AND  MADE  POSSIBLE  BY  HZS  KINDNESS, 
IS   RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED, 


The  old  Teutonic  Assembly  rose  again  to  full  life  in  the  New 
England  town-meeting.  —  Freeman. 

Samuel  Adams,  the  helmsman  of  the  Revolution  at  its  origin, 
the  truest  representative  of  the  home  rule  of  Massachusetts  in  its 
town-meetings  and  General  Court.  —  Bancroft. 

A  man  whom  Plutarch,  if  he  had  only  lived  late  enough,  would 
have  delighted  to  include  in  his  gallery  of  worthies,  —  a  man  uho 
in  the  history  of  the  American  Revolution  is  second  only  to  Wash 
ington,  —  Samuel  Adams.  —  John  Fiske. 


PEEFAOE. 


A  LIFE  of  Samuel  Adams  from  beyond  the 
Mississippi !  Of  all  the  worthies  of  Boston  is 
there  one  more  thoroughly  Bostonian,  and  is  it 
not  impertinence,  bordering  upon  profanity,  for 
the  wild  West  to  lay  hold  of  his  name  and  fame  ? 
The  writer  of  this  book  believes  that  his  pages 
will  exhibit  in  Samuel  Adams  a  significance  by 
no  means  circumscribed  within  narrow  limits. 
The  story  of  his  career  can  as  appropriately 
claim  the  attention  of  the  West  —  yea,  of  the 
North  and  South  —  as  of  the  East. 

But  if  it  should  be  thought  that  only  New 
England  hands  can  touch,  without  sacrilege,  so 
sacred  an  ark,  it  may  be  urged  that  the  members 
of  that  larger  New  England,  which  has  forsaken 
the  ungenerous  granite  of  the  old  home  for  the 
fatter  prairies  and  uplands  of  the  interior,  re 
main,  nevertheless,  true  Yankees,  and  have  bar 
tered  away  no  particle  of  their  birthright  for 
the  more  abundant  pottage ;  they  will  by  no 
means  consent  to  resign  any  portion  of  their 


vill  PREFACE. 

interest  in  the  gods,  altars,  and  heroes  of  their 
race. 

If  a  personal  reference  may  be  pardoned,  the 
writer  can  claim  that  it  has  come  down  in  his 
blood  to  have  to  do  with  Samuel  Adams.  His 
great-great-grandfather,  a  colonel  of  the  Old 
French  War,  was  sent,  in  the  pre-revolutionary 
days,  by  the  town  of  Concord  to  the  Massachu 
setts  Assembly,  and  was  one  of  Sam  Adams's 
faithful  supporters  in  the  long  struggle  when 
at  length  Bernard  and  Hutchinson  were  foiled 
and  driven  out.  In  the  post-revolutionary  days 
the  writer's  great-grandfather,  a  former  captain 
of  minute-men,  sat  for  Concord  for  some  years 
in  the  Massachusetts  Senate,  under  the  sway  of 
Samuel  Adams  as  presiding  officer.  When,  on 
the  fateful  April  morning,  Gage  sent  out  the 
regulars  to  seize  Sam  Adams  and  John  Han 
cock,  proscribed  and  in  hiding  at  Lexington, 
the  ancient  colonel  and  the  captain  of  minute- 
men,  leaving  at  their  homesteads  the  provincial 
powder  and  cannon-balls  concealed  in  the  barns 
and  wells,  had  a  main  hand  in  organizing  and 
carrying  through,  at  the  north  bridge  in  Con- 
-cord,  the  diversion  which  enabled  Sam  Adams 
-to  escape,  unmolested,  to  the  Congress  at  Phila 
delphia.  The  writer's  grandfather,  in  the  next 
generation  again,  just  arrived  at  musket-bearing 
age  in  the  hard  time  of  Shays's  Rebellion,  sus- 


PREFACE.  ix 

tained  Governor  Bowdoin  and  the  cause  of  law 
and  order,  among  the  rank  and  file,  as  did  the 
aged  Samuel  Adams  in  a  higher  sphere. 

Of  all  the  "  embattled  farmers  "  who  stood 
in  arms  at  Concord  bridge  on  the  day  when  the 
arch-rebel  eluded  the  clutch  of  King  George, 
the  captain  of  the  minute-men,  it  is  said,  is  the 
only  one  whose  portrait  has  been  transmitted 
to  our  time.  That  portrait  has  hung  upon  the 
wall  of  the  writer's  study  while  he  has  been 
busy  with  this  book  ;  and  it  has  required  no 
great  stretch  of  imagination  sometimes,  among 
the  uncertain  shadows  of  midnight,  to  think  that 
the  face  of  the  old  "  Revolutioner  "  grew  genial 
and  sympathetic,  as  his  great-grandson  tried 
to  tell  the  story  of  the  "  Chief  of  the  Revolu 
tion." 

Though  writing,  for  the  most  part,  in  St. 
Louis,  the  author  has  traveled  far  to  study 
authorities.  Whatever  the  Boston  collections 
possess,  —  manuscripts,  old  newspapers,  pam 
phlets,  books,  —  has  been  freely  opened  to  him, 
and  examined  by  him.  His  greatest  oppor 
tunity,  however,  was  offered  to  him  at  Wash 
ington,  by  the  kindness  of  Honorable  George 
Bancroft.  Mr.  Bancroft  holds  in  his  possession 
most  of  the  manuscripts  of  Samuel  Adams  yet 
extant,  together  with  a  large  number  of  auto 
graph  letters  written  to  Mr.  Adams  throughout 


X  PREFACE. 

his  long  life  by  conspicuous  men  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  period.  These  original  papers,  a  col 
lection  of  the  greatest  value  and  interest,  the 
writer  has  been  permitted,  by  the  politeness  of 
Mr.  Bancroft,  to  use  with  entire  freedom.  This 
politeness  the  writer  desires  most  gratefully  to 
acknowledge. 

Much  help  has  been  derived  from  the  "  Life 
of  Samuel  Adams,"  by  William  V.  Wells,  his 
great-grandson,  whose  three  large  octavos  give 
evidence  of  much  painstaking,  and  are  full  of 
interesting  materials.  The  writer  of  the  pres 
ent  biography  has  had  no  thought  of  super 
seding  the  important  work  of  Mr.  Wells,  which 
must  be  consulted  by  all  who  desire  a  minute 
knowledge  of  Mr.  Adams's  character  and  career. 
The  volumes  of  Mr.  Wells  have  an  especial 
value  on  account  of  the  large  number  of  ex 
tracts  from  the  writings  of  Samuel  Adams 
which  they  contain.  To  some  extent  the  cita 
tions  in  the  present  work  have  been  taken  from 
these ;  in  great  part,  however,  they  have  been 
selected  from  old  legislative  reports  and  news 
papers,  and  also  from  imprinted  records,  drafts, 
and  letters.  The  filial  piety  of  Mr.  Wells  is 
much  too  exemplary ;  the  career  of  his  ancestor 
throughout  he  regards  with  an  admiration  quite 
too  indiscriminate.  Nor  is  his  tone  as  regards 
the  unfortunate  men,  against  whom  Samuel 


PREFACE.  XI 

Adams  fought  his  battle,  that  which  candid 
historians  of  the  Revolution  will  hereafter  em 
ploy.  The  present  book  aims  to  give,  in  smaller 
compass,  what  is  most  important  in  Mr.  Adams's 
career,  and  to  estimate  more  fairly  his  charac 
ter  and  that  of  his  opponents. 

JAMES  K.   HOSMER. 
ST.  Louis,  March  24,  1885. 


COISTTElSTTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE  YOUTH  AND  HIS  SUKROUNDINGS   .     .....        1 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  STRUGGLE 21 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  WRITS  OF  ASSISTANCE 33 

CHAPTER  IV. 
IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY 46 

CHAPTER   V. 

PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION  AND  THE  MASSA 
CHUSETTS  RESOLVES .     .     .     .      62 

CHAPTER   VI.  ! 
THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND       ......       78 

CHAPTER   VII. 
THE  TRUE  SENTIMENTS  OF  AMERICA  ......      90 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS     ....  109 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

PAGE 

THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD 126 

CHAPTER  X. 
THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS 145 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS 160 

CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  CONTROVERSY  AS  TO  ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS   .     .     183 

CHAPTER    XIII. 
THE  COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE 196 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
THE  CONTROVERSY  AS  TO  PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY     207 

CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS 220 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
THE  TEA-PARTY 243 

CHAPTER   XVII. 
HUTCHINSON  AND  THE  TORIES 257 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 
PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS      ....     289 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
LEXINGTON  .  .     .    313 


CONTENTS.  XV 

CHAPTER  XX. 

PAGE 

THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 332 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS  .     .     .    351 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
CLOSING  YEARS 376 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
THE  TOWN-MEETING  TO-DAY .    .    418 

INDEX    .  ,    433 


SAMUEL  ADAMS. 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE  YOUTH  AND  HIS  SUEBOUNDIKGS. 

THE  Folk-mote,  the  fixed,  frequent,  accessi 
ble  meeting  of  the  individual  freemen  for  dis 
cussing  and  deciding  upon  public  matters,  had 
great  importance  in  the  polity  of  the  primeval 
Teutons,  and  was  transmitted  by  them  to  their 
English  descendants.  All  thoughtful  political 
writers  have  held  it  to  be  one  of  the  best 
schools  for  forming  the  faculties  of  men ;  it 
must  underlie  every  representative  system  in 
order  to  make  that  system  properly  effective. 
The  ancient  folk-mote,  the  proper  primordial 
cell  of  every  Anglo-Saxon  body-politic,  which 
the  carelessness  of  the  people  and  the  encroach 
ments  of  princes  had  caused  to  be  much  over 
laid  in  England,  reappeared  with  great  vitality 
in  the  New  England  town-meeting.1 

1  Tacitus,    Germania,   xi.     Waitz,  Deutsche   Verfassungsge- 
sckichte,  Band  i.  4.     Freeman,  Growth  of  English  Constitution, 


2  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

At  the  Revolution,  in  Massachusetts,  then  in 
cluding  Maine,  and  containing  210,000  white 
inhabitants,  more  than  were  found  in  any  other 
American  colony,  there  were  more  than  two 
hundred  towns,  whose  constitution  is  thus  de 
scribed  by  Gordon,  a  writer  of  the  period :  — 

"  Every  town  is  an  incorporated  republic.  The 
selectmen,  by  their  own  authority,  or  upon  the  appli 
cation  of  a  certain  number  of  townsmen,  issue  a  war 
rant  for  the  calling  of  a  town-meeting.  The  warrant 
mentions  the  business  to  be  engaged  in,  and  no  other 
can  be  legally  executed.  The  inhabitants  are  warned 
to  attend  ;  and  they  that  are  present,  though  not  a 
quarter  or  tenth  of  the  whole,  have  a  right  to  pro 
ceed.  They  choose  a  president  by  the  name  of  mod 
erator,  who  regulates  the  proceedings  of  the  meeting. 
Each  individual  has  an  equal  liberty  of  delivering  his 
opinion,  and  is  not  liable  to  be  silenced  or  brow 
beaten  by  a  richer  or  greater  townsman  than  himself. 
Every  freeman  or  freeholder  gives  his  vote  or  not, 
and  for  or  against,  as  he  pleases ;  and  each  vote 
weighs  equally,  whether  that  of  the  highest  or  lowest 
inhabitant.  .  .  .  All  the  New  England  towns  are  on 
the  same  plan  in  general." 

p.  17.  May,  Constitutional  History  of  England,  ii.  460.  Phil 
lips,  Geschichte  des  Anyelsachsischen  Rechts,  p.  12.  J.  Toulmin 
Smith,  Local  Self- Government  and  Centralization,  p.  29,  etc. 
Johns  Hopkins  Univ.  Studies.  E.  A.  Freeman,  Jntrod.  to  Am. 
Institut.  Hist.  H.  B.  Adams,  Germanic  Origin  ofN.  E.  Towns. 
Edward  Channing,  Town  and  County  Government  in  the  Eng 
lish  Colonies  of  N.  A. 


THE   YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.         3 

Throughout  the  thirteen  colonies,  the  folk- 
mote  existed  in  well-developed  form  only  in  the 
New  England  town-meeting ;  few  traces  of  it 
can  be  found  in  the  South  ;  nor  in  the  middle 
colonies  was  the  case  much  different.  At  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  New  England  stood 
alone  in  having  restored  a  primitive  liberty 
which  had  been  superseded,  each  of  her  little 
democracies  governing  itself  after  a  fashion  for 
which  there  was  no  precedent  without  going 
back  to  the  folk-mote  of  a  remote  day  —  to  a 
time  before  the  kings  of  England  began  to  be 
arbitrary,  and  before  the  people  became  in 
different  to  their  birth-right. 

The  New  England  town  is  best  presented  at 
a  point  when  it  has  had  time  to  become  fully 
developed,  and  before  the  causes  have  begun  to 
operate  which  in  our  day  have  largely  changed 
it.  The  period  of  the  Revolution,  in  fact,  is 
the  epoch  that  must  be  selected  ;  and  the  town 
of  towns,  in  which  everything  that  is  most  dis 
tinctive  appears  most  plainly,  is  Boston. 

Boston  was  a  town  governed  by  its  folk- 
mote  almost  from  its  foundation  until  1822, 
more  than  one  hundred  and  eighty  years.  In 
1822,  when  the  inhabitants  numbered  forty 
thousand,  it  reluctantly  became  a  city,  giving 
up  its  town-meetings  because  they  had  grown 
so  large  as  to  be  unmanageable,  —  the  people 


4  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

thereafter  choosing  a  mayor  and  common  coun 
cil  to  do  the  public  business  for  them,  instead  of 
doing  it  themselves.  The  records  of  the  town 
of  Boston,  carefully  preserved  from  the  earliest 
times,  lie  open  to  public  inspection  in  the  office 
of  the  city  clerk.  Whoever  pores  over  these 
records,  on  the  yellow  paper,  in  the  faded  ink, 
as  it  came  from  the  pens  of  the  ancient  town 
clerks,  will  find  that  for  the  first  hundred  years 
the  freemen  are  occupied  for  the  most  part 
with  their  local  concerns.  How  the  famous 
cowpaths  pass  through  the  phases  of  their  evo 
lution,  —  footway,  country-lane,  high-road,  — 
until  at  length  they  become  the  streets  and  re 
ceive  dignified  names  ;  what  ground  shall  be 
taken  for  burying-places,  and  how  it  shall  be 
fenced,  as  the  little  settlement  gradually  covers 
the  whole  peninsula  ;  how  the  Neck,  then  a  very 
consumptive  looking  neck,  not  goitred  by  a  ward 
or  two  of  brick  and  mortar-covered  territory, 
may  be  protected,  so  that  it  may  not  be  guillo 
tined  by  some  sharp  north-easter ;  what  pre 
cautions  shall  be  taken  against  the  spread  of 
small-pox  ;  who  shall  see  to  it  that  dirt  shall 
not  be  thrown  into  the  town  dock ;  that  inquiry 
shall  be  made  whether  Latin  may  not  be  better 
taught  in  the  public  schools,  —  such  topics  as 
these  are  considered.  For  the  most  part,  the 
record  is  tedious  and  unimportant  detail  for  a 


THE   YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.         5 

modern  reader,  though  now  and  then  in  an  ad 
dress  to  the  sovereign,  or  a  document  which 
implies  that  all  is  not  harmony  between  the 
town  and  the  royal  governor,  the  horizon  broad 
ens  a  little.  But  soon  after  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  record  largely  changes. 
William  Cooper  at  length  begins  his  service 
of  forty-nine  years  as  town  clerk,  starting  out 
in  1761  with  a  bold,  round  hand,  which  gradu 
ally  becomes  faint  and  tremulous  as  the  writer 
descends  into  old  age.  One  may  well  turn  over 
the  musty  pages  here  with  no  slight  feeling  of 
awe,  for  it  is  the  record,  made  at  the  moment, 
of  one  of  the  most  memorable  struggles  of  hu 
man  history,  that  between  the  little  town  of 
Boston  on  the  one  hand,  and  George  III.  with 
all  the  power  of  England  at  his  back,  on  the 
other. 

At  the  date  of  the  Stamp  Act,  1765,  the  pop 
ulation  of  Boston  was  not  far  from  18,000,  in 
vast  majority  of  English  blood  ;  though  a  few 
families  of  Huguenots,  like  the  Faneuils,  the 
Bowdoins,  the  Reveres,  and  the  Molineux,  had 
strengthened  the  stock  by  being  crossed  with 
it,  and  there  was  now  and  then  a  Scotchman 
or  an  Irishman.  As  the  Bostonians  were  of 
one  race,  so  in  vast  majority  they  were  of  one 
faith,  Independents  of  Cromwell's  type,  though 
there  were  Episcopalians,  and  a  few  Quakers 


6  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

and  Baptists.  The  town  drew  its  life  from 
the  sea,  to  which  all  its  industry  was  more  or 
less  closely  related.  Hundreds  of  men  were 
afloat  much  of  the  time,  captains  or  before  the 
mast,  leaving  their  wives  and  children  in  the 
town,  but  themselves  being  on  shore  only  in  the 
intervals  between  the  most  enterprising  voy 
ages.  Of  the  landsmen,  a  large  proportion  were 
ship-builders.  The  staunchest  crafts  that  sailed 
slid  by  the  dozen  down  the  ways  of  the  Boston 
yards.  New  England  needed  a  great  fleet,  hav 
ing,  as  she  did,  a  good  part  of  the  carrying-trade 
of  the  thirteen  colonies,  with  that  of  the  West 
Indies  also.  Another  industry,  less  salutary, 
was  the  distilling  of  rum  ;  and  much  of  this 
went  in  the  ships  of  Boston  and  Newport  men 
to  the  coast  of  Africa,  to  be  exchanged  for 
slaves.  It  was  a  different  world  from  ours, 
and  should  be  judged  by  different  standards. 
Besides  the  branches  mentioned,  there  was  lit 
tle  manufacturing  in  town  or  country  ;  the  pol 
icy  of  the  mother  country  was  to  discourage 
colonial  manufactures  ;  everything  must  be 
made  in  England,  the  colonies  being  chiefly 
valuable  from  the  selfish  consideration  that 
they  could  be  made  to  afford  a  profitable  mar 
ket  for  the  goods.  In  the  interior,  therefore, 
the  people  were  all  farmers,  bringing  their 
produce  to  Boston,  and  taking  thence,  when 


THE  YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.          7 

they  went  home,  such  English  goods  as  they 
needed.  Hence  the  town  was  a  great  mart. 
The  merchants  were  numerous  and  rich  ;  the 
distilleries  fumed ;  the  ship-yards  rattled ;  the 
busy  ships  went  in  and  out ;  and  the  country 
people  flocked  in  to  the  centre. 

Though  Boston  lost  before  the  Revolution 
the  distinction  of  being  the  largest  town  in 
America,  it  remained  the  intellectual  head  of 
the  country.  Its  common  schools  gave  every 
child  a  good  education,  and  Harvard  College, 
scarcely  out  of  sight,  and  practically  a  Boston 
institution,  gave  a  training  hardly  inferior  to 
that  of  European  universities  of  the  day.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  social  scale  were  the  negro 
slaves.  The  newspapers  have  many  advertise 
ments  of  slaves  for  sale,  and  of  runaways 
sought  by  their  masters.  Slavery,  however, 
was  far  on  the  wane,  and  soon  after  the  Revolu 
tion  became  extinguished.  The  negroes  were 
for  the  most  part  servants  in  families,  not  work 
men  at  trades,  and  so  exercised  little  influence 
in  the  way  of  bringing  labor  into  disrepute. 

As  the  slaves  were  at  the  bottom,  so  at  the 
top  of  society  were  the  ministers,  men  often  of 
fine  force,  ability,  and  education.  No  other 
such  career  as  the  ministry  afforded  was  open 
in  those  days  to  ambitious  men.  Year  by  year 
the  best  men  of  each  Cambridge  class  went  into 


8  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

the  ministry,  and  the  best  of  them  were  sifted 
out  for  the  Boston  pulpit.  Jonathan  May- 
hew,  Andrew  Eliot,  Samuel  Cooper,  Charles 
Chauncey,  Mather  Byles,  —  all  were  characters 
of  mark,  true  to  the  Puritan  standards,  gen 
erally,  as  regards  faith,  eloquent  in  their  office, 
friends  and  advisers  of  the  political  leaders, 
themselves  often  political  leaders,  foremost  in 
the  public  meetings,  and  active  in  private. 

Together  with  the  ministers,  the  merchants 
were  a  class  of  influence.  Nothing  could  be 
bolder  than  the  spirit  in  those  days  of  Bos 
ton  commerce.  In  ships  built  at  the  yards  of 
the  town,  the  Yankee  crews  went  everywhere 
through  the  world.  Timber,  tobacco,  tar,  rice, 
from  the  Southern  colonies,  wheat  from  Mary 
land,  sugar  and  molasses  from  the  West  Indies, 
sought  the  markets  of  the  world  in  New  Eng 
land  craft.  The  laws  of  trade  were  compli 
cated  and  oppressive ;  but  every  skipper  was 
more  or  less  a  smuggler,  and  knew  well  how  to 
brave  or  evade  authority.  Wealth  flowed  fast 
into  the  pockets  of  the  Boston  merchants,  who 
built  and  furnished  fine  mansions,  walked  King 
Street  in  gold  lace  and  fine  ruffles,  and  sat  at 
home,  as  John  Hancock  is  described,  in  "  a  red 
velvet  cap,  within  which  was  one  of  fine  linen, 
the  edge  of  this  turned  up  over  the  velvet  one 
two  or  three  inches.  He  wore  a  blue  damask 


THE   YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.         9 

gown  lined  with  silk,  a  white  plaited  stock,  a 
white  silk  embroidered  waistcoat,  black  silk 
small-clothes,  white  silk  stockings,  and  red  mo 
rocco  slippers."  It  is  all  still  made  real  to  us 
in  the  superb  portraits  of  Copley,  —  the  mer 
chants  sitting  in  their  carved  chairs,  while  a 
chart  of  distant  seas  unrolled  on  the  table,  or 
a  glimpse  through  a  richly  curtained  window  in 
the  background  at  a  busy  wharf  or  a  craft  un 
der  full  sail,  hints  at  the  employment  that  has 
lifted  the  men  to  wealth  and  consequence. 

Below  the  merchants,  the  class  of  workmen 
formed  a  body  most  energetic.  Dealing  with 
the  tough  oak  that  was  to  be  shaped  into  storm- 
defying  hulls,  twisting  the  cordage  that  must 
stand  the  strain  of  arctic  ice  and  tropic  hur 
ricane,  forging  anchors  that  must  hold  off  the 
lee-shores  of  all  tempestuous  seas,  —  this  was 
work  to  bring  out  vigor  of  muscle,  and  also  of 
mind  and  temper.  The  caulkers  were  bold  pol 
iticians.  The  rope-walk  hands  were  energetic 
to  turbulence,  courting  the  brawls  with  the 
soldiers  which  led  to  the  "  Boston  massacre." 
It  must  be  said,  too,  that  the  taverns  throve. 
New  England  rum  was  very  plentiful,  the  cargo 
of  many  a  ship  that  passed  the  "  Boston  Light," 
of  many  a  townsman  and  "  high  private  "  who 
came  to  harsh  words,  and,  perhaps,  fisticuffs,  in 
Pudding  Lane  or  Dock  Square.  The  prevailing 


10  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

tone  of  the  town,  however,  was  decent  and 
grave.  The  churches  were  thronged  on  Sun 
days  and  at  Thursday  lecture,  as  they  have  not 
been  since.  All  classes  were  renders  ;  the  book 
sellers  fill  whole  columns  in  the  newspapers 
with  their  lists  ;  the  best  books  then  in  being 
in  all  departments  of  literature  are  on  sale  and 
in  the  circulating  libraries.  The  five  news 
papers  the  people  may  be  said  to  have  edited 
themselves.  Instead  of  the  impersonal  articles 
of  a  modern  journal,  the  space  in  a  sheet  of  the 
"  Revolution,"  after  the  news  and  advertise 
ments,  was  occupied  by  letters,  in  which  "  A 
Chatterer,"  "A.  Z.,"  or  more  often  some  classic 
character,  "  Sagittarius,"  "  Vindex,"  "  Philan- 
throp,"  "  Valerius  Poplicola,"  "  Nov-Anglus," 
or  "  Massachusettensis,"  belabors  Whig  or 
Tory,  according  to  his  own  stripe  of  politics,  — 
the  champion  sometimes  appearing  in  a  rather 
Chinese  fashion,  stilted  up  on  high  rhetorical 
soles,  and  padded  out  with  pompous  period  and 
excessive  classic  allusion,  but  often  direct,  bold, 
and  well-armed  from  the  arsenals  of  the  best 
political  thinkers. 

Of  course  the  folk-mote  of  such  a  town  as 
this  would  have  spirit  and  interest.  Wrote  a 
Tory  in  those  days : l  "  The  town-meeting  at 

1  Sagittarius,  quoted  by  Frothingham  :  "  The  Sam  Adams's 
Regiments,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1863. 


THE    YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.       11 

Boston  is  the  hot-bed  of  sedition.  It  is  there 
that  all  their  dangerous  insurrections  are  en 
gendered  ;  it  is  there  that  the  flame  of  discord 
and  rebellion  was  first  lighted  up  and  dissemi 
nated  over  the  provinces  ;  it  is  therefore  greatly 
to  be  wished  that  Parliament  may  rescue  the 
loyal  inhabitants  of  that  town  and  province 
from  the  merciless  hand  of  an  ignorant  mob, 
led  on  and  inflamed  by  self-interested  and  prof 
ligate  men."  Have  more  interesting  assem 
blies  ever  taken  place  in  the  history  of  the 
world  than  the  Boston  town-meetings  ?  Out 
of  them  grew  the  independence  of  the  United 
States,  and  what  more  important  event  has 
ever  occurred? 

Massachusetts  was  unquestionably  the  leader 
in  the  Revolution.1  After  the  first  year  of  war, 

1  On  this  point,  which  local  pride  might  dispute,  a  few  au 
thorities  may  be  cited.  Englishmen  at  the  time  felt  as  fol 
lows  :  "  In  all  the  late  American  disturbances  and  in  every 
thought  against  the  authority  of  the  British  Parliament,  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  Bay  have  taken  the  lead.  Every 
new  move  towards  independence  has  been  theirs ;  and  in  every 
fresh  mode  of  resistance  against  the  law  they  have  first  set 
the  example,  and  then  issued  out  admonitory  letters  to  the 
other  colonies  to  follow  it."  Mauduit's  Short  View  of  the  Hist, 
of  the  N.  E.  Colonies,  p.  5.  See  also  Anburey's  Travels,  i.  310. 
Hutchinson,  Hist,  of  Mass.  Bay,  iii.  257.  Rivington,  Inde 
pendence  the  Object  of  Congress  in  America,  London,  1776,  p. 
15.  Lord  Camden  called  Massachusetts  "  The  ring-leading 
Colony."  Coming  to  writers  of  our  own  time,  Lecky  declares, 
Hist.  ofXVIIIth  Century,  iii.  386:  "  The  Central  and  South- 


12  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

indeed,  the  soil  of  New  England,  as  compared 
with  the  Centre  and  South,  suffered  little  from 
the  scourge  of  hostile  military  occupation. 
Her  sacrifices,  however,  did  not  cease.  There 
is  no  way  of  determining  how  many  New  Eng 
land  militia  took  the  field  during  the  strife  •, 
the  multitude  was  certainly  vast.  The  figures, 
however,  as  regards  the  more  regular  levies, 
have  been  preserved  and  are  significant.  With 
a  population  comprising  scarcely  more  than  one 
third  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  thirteen  colonies, 
New  England  furnished  118,251  of  the  231,791 
Continental  troops  that  figured  in  the  war. 
Massachusetts  alone  furnished  67,907,  more 
than  one  quarter  of  the  entire  number.  As  re 
gards  the  giving  of  money  and  supplies,  without 
doubt  her  proportion  was  as  large.  There  re 
sistance  to  British  encroachment  began ;  thence 
disaffection  to  Britain  was  spread  abroad. 

ern  Colonies  long  hesitated  to  follow  New  England.  Massa 
chusetts  had  thrown  herself  with  fierce  energy  into  the  con 
flict,  and  soon  drew  the  other  provinces  in  her  wake/'  Says 
J.  K.  Seeley,  Expansion  of  England,  pp.  154, 155  :  "  The  spirit 
driving  the  colonies  to  separation  from  England,  a  principle 
attracting  and  conglobing  them  into  a  new  union  among  them 
selves,  —  how  early  did  this  spirit  show  itself  in  the  New  Eng 
land  colonies  !  It  was  not  present  in  all  the  colonies.  It 
was  not  present  in  Virginia;  but  when  the  colonial  discon 
tents  burst  into  a  flame,  then  was  the  moment  when  Virginia 
went  over  to  New  England,  and  the  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  found  the  power  to  turn  the  offended  colonists  into  a 
new  nation/' 


THE  YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.       13 

As  Massachusetts  led  the  thirteen  colonies, 
the  town  of  Boston  led  Massachusetts.  "  This 
Province  began  it,"  wrote  General  Gage,1  —  "I 
might  say  this  town,  for  here  the  arch-rebels 
formed  their  scheme  long  ago."  The  ministers 
of  George  III.  recognized  this  leadership  and 
attacked  Boston  first.  So  thoroughly  did  the 
forces  of  revolt  centre  here  that  the  English 
pamphleteers,  seeking  to  uphold  the  govern 
ment  cause,  speak  sometimes  not  so  much  of 
Americans,  or  New  Englanders,  or  indeed  men 
of  Massachusetts,  as  of  "  Bostoneers,"  as  if  it 
were  with  the  people  of  that  one  little  town 
that  the  fight  was  to  be  waged.  Even  in  the 
woods  and  wilds  the  preeminence  was  known. 
When  Major  George  Rogers  Clark  was  sub 
duing  the  Mississippi  valley,  he  found  that 
the  British  emissaries,  rousing  the  Indians  and 
simple  French  habitant  against  him  by  using 
the  terms  they  could  best  understand,  had  urged 
them  "  to  fight  Boston."  Boston  led  the  thir 
teen  colonies.  Who  led  the  town  of  Boston? 
He  certainly  ought  to  be  a  memorable  figure. 
He  it  is  whose  story  this  book  is  designed  to 
tell.  4 

The  progenitor  in  America  of  the  Adams 
family,  so  numerous  and  famous,  was  Henry 

1  To  Lord  Dartmouth ;  quoted  in  Diary  and  Letters  of 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  p.  16. 


14  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Adams,  who,  with  a  family  of  eight  children, 
settled  at  an  early  period  near  Mount  Wollas- 
ton  in  Quincy.  The  inscription  on  his  tomb 
stone,  written  by  President  John  Adams,  de 
scribes  him  as  having  come  from  Devonshire, 
in  England.  English  families  of  the  name  trace 
their  descent  from  a  remote  Welsh  ancestor  ; 
there  is  a  possibility,  therefore,  of  a  mixture  of 
Celtic  blood  in  the  stock.  Grandsons  of  the 
emigrant  Henry  Adams  were  Joseph  Adams, 
a  citizen  of  Braintree,  and  John  Adams,  a  sea- 
captain.  The  former  was  grandfather  of  Pres 
ident  John  Adams ;  the  latter  was  grandfather 
of  Samuel  Adams,  the  subject  of  this  memoir. 
The  second  son  of  Captain  John  Adams  was 
Samuel  Adams,  born  May  6,  1689,  in  Boston, 
where  he  always  lived,  and  where  he  was  mar 
ried  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  to  Mary  Fifield. 
From  this  union  proceeded  a  family  of  twelve 
children,  three  only  of  whom  survived  their 
father.  Of  these  the  illustrious  Samuel  Adams 
was  born  September  16,  O.  S.,  1722. 

The  theory  that  great  men  derive  their  pow 
ers  from  their  mothers  rather  than  their  fathers 
may,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as  exploded.  It  will 
receive  no  support,  at  least,  from  the  case  of 
Samuel  Adams.  Of  his  mother  no  mention  can 
be  found  except  that  she  was  rigidly  pious  after 
the  puritan  standards ;  his  father,  however, 


THE  YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.       15 

was  a  man  of  most  noteworthy  qualities,  and 
filled  a  large  place  in  the  community  in  which 
his  lot  was  cast.  He  was  possessed,  at  first,  of 
what  for  those  days  was  a  large  property,  and 
in  1712  bought  a  handsome  estate  in  Purchase 
Street,  extending  two  hundred  and  fifty-eight 
feet  along  the  thoroughfare  and  running  thence 
to  the  low  water  line  of  the  harbor.  The  man 
sion,  large  and  substantial,  fronted  the  water, 
of  which  it  commanded  a  fine  view.  Samuel 
Adams,  senior,  early  made  impression,  passing 
soon  from  a  purely  private  station  into  various 
public  positions.  He  became  justice  of  the 
peace,  deacon  of  the  Old  South  Church,  then 
an  office  of  dignity,  selectman,  one  of  the  im 
portant  committee  of  the  town  to  instruct  the 
representatives  to  the  Assembly,  and  at  length 
entered  the  Assembly  itself.  His  son  called 
him  "  a  wise  man  and  a  good  man."  He  was 
everywhere  a  leader.  In  1715,  largely  through 
his  influence,  the  "  New  South  "  religious  soci 
ety  was  established  in  Summer  Street.  About 
the  year  1724,  with  a  score  or  so  of  others,  gen 
erally  from  the  North  End,  where  the  ship 
yards  especially  lay,  he  was  prominent  in  a  club 
designed  "  to  lay  plans  for  introducing  certain 
persons  into  places  of  trust  and  power."  It 
was  known  as  the  "  Caulkers'  Club,"  hence, 
possibly,  one  of  the  best  known  terms  in  politi- 


16  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

cal  nomenclature.  As  a  representative  he  sig 
nalized  himself  by  opposition  to  that  combative 
old  veteran  from  the  wars  of  Marlborough, 
Shute,  in  whose  incumbency  the  chronic  quar 
rel  between  governor  and  legislature  grew  very 
sharp.  The  tastes  and  abilities,  indeed,  which 
made  the  son  afterwards  so  famous,  are  also 
plain  in  the  father,  only  appearing  in  the  son 
in  a  more  marked  degree  and  in  a  time  more 
favorable  for  their  exhibition. 

"Sam"  Adams  (to  his  contemporaries  it  was 
affectation  quite  superfluous  to  go  beyond  the 
monosyllable  in  giving  his  Christian  name) 
has  left  but  few  traces  of  his  boyhood.  There 
is  a  story  that  as  he  went  back  and  forth  be 
tween  home  and  the  wooden  school-house  in 
School  Street,  just  in  the  rear  of  King's  Chapel, 
his  punctuality  was  so  invariable  that  the  la 
borers  regulated  their  hours  of  work  by  him. 
One  is  glad  to  believe  that  this  tale  of  virtue 
so  portentous  has  no  good  foundation.  Un 
doubtedly,  however,  he  was  a  staid,  prema 
turely  intelligent  boy,  responding  to  the  severe 
Puritan  influences  which  surrounded  him,  and 
early  developed  through  listening  to  the  talk 
of  the  strong  men  of  the  town,  for  whom  his 
father's  house  was  a  favorite  meeting-place. 
Of  his  college  life,  too,  there  is  almost  no  men 
tion.  He  was  a  close  student  and  always  after- 


THE   YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.       17 

ward  fond  of  quoting  Greek  and  Latin.  His 
father's  earnest  wish  was  that  he  should  study 
theology.  Whitefield,  as  Sam  Adams  came 
forward  into  life,  was  quickening  wonderfully 
the  zeal  of  New  England.  It  would  have  been 
natural  for  the  parents  and  the  sober-minded 
son  to  feel  a  warmth  from  so  powerful  a  torch. 
A  minister,  however,  he  could  not  be.  He  re 
ceived  the  degree  of  A.  B.  in  1740,  and  when 
three  years  after  he  became  Master  of  Arts, 
the  thesis  which  he  presented  showed  plainly 
what  was  his  true  bent.  "  Whether  it  be  Law 
ful  to  resist  the  Supreme  Magistrate,  if  the 
Commonwealth  cannot  otherwise  be  preserved," 
was  his  subject,  which  he  proceeded  to  discuss 
in  the  presence,  not  only  of  the  college  dignita 
ries,  but  of  the  new  governor,  Shirley,  and  the 
Crown  officials,  who  sat  in  state  near  the  young 
speakers  at  Commencement,  as  do  their  suc 
cessors  to-day.  What  he  said  and  what  effect 
he  produced  is  not  recorded.  No  one  knew 
that  as  the  young  man  spoke,  then,  for  the 
first  time,  one  of  the  great  Revolutionary  group 
was  asserting  the  right  of  resistance  by  the 
people  to  arbitrary  oppressors.  Shirley  was 
perhaps  lost  in  some  far-away  dream  of  how 
he  might  get  at  the  French ;  and  when  thirty 
years  after,  in  his  retirement  at  Dorchester, 
he  asked  who  the  Sam  Adams  could  be  that 
2 


18  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

was  sneh  a  thorn  in  the  side  to  his  successors 
Bernard  and  Hutchinson,  he  was  quite  uncon 
scious  of  the  fact  that  he  himself  had  had  the 
benefit,  close  at  hand,  of  the  first  scratch. 

In  the  Harvard  quinquennial,  where  the 
names  in  the  provincial  period  are  arranged 
not  alphabetically,  but  according  to  the  conse 
quence  of  the  families  to  which  the  students 
belong,  Sam  Adams  stands  fifth  in  a  class  of 
twenty-two.  As  he  reached  his  majority  his 
father  became  embarrassed,  and  while  misfor 
tune  impended,  Sam  Adams,  whose  disinclina 
tion  to  theology  had  become  plain,  began  the 
study  of  law.  This  his  mother  is  said  to  have 
disapproved;  law  in  those  days  was  hardly 
recognized  as  a  profession,  and  the  young  man 
turned  to  mercantile  life  as  a  calling  substantial 
and  respectable.  He  entered  the  counting- 
house  of  Thomas  Gushing,  a  prominent  mer 
chant,  with  whose  son  of  the  same  name  he 
was  destined  afterwards  to  be  closely  connected 
through  many  years  of  public  service.  For 
business,  however,  he  had  neither  taste  nor 
tact.  The  competition  of  trade  was  repulsive 
to  him ;  his  desire  for  gain  was  of  the  slightest. 
Leaving  Mr.  Gushing  after  a  few  months,  he 
received  from  his  father  XI, 000  with  which  to 
begin  business  for  himself.  Half  of  this  he 
lent  to  a  friend  who  never  repaid  it,  and  the 


THE    YOUTH  AND  HIS  SURROUNDINGS.       19 

other  half  lie  soon  lost  in  his  own  operations. 
Thriftless  though  he  seemed,  he  began  to  be 
regarded  as  not  unpromising,  for  there  were 
certain  directions  in  which  his  mind  was  won 
derfully  active.  Father  and  son  became  part 
ners  in  a  malt-house  situated  on  the  estate  in 
Purchase  Street,  and  one  can  well  understand 
how  business  must  have  suffered  in  the  circum 
stances  in  which  they  were  presently  placed. 

The  times  became  wonderfully  stirring.  In 
1745  Sir  William  Pepperell  led  his  New  Eng 
land  army  to  the  capture  of  Louisburg.  Bos 
ton  was  at  first  absorbed  in  the  great  prepara 
tions  ;  while  the  siege  proceeded  the  town  was 
in  a  fever  of  anxiety,  as  it  had  good  cause  to 
be  ;  for  brave  though  they  were,  whoever  reads 
the  story  must  feel  that  only  the  most  extraor 
dinary  good  luck  could  have  brought  the  pro 
vincials  through.  When  the  victory  was  at 
length  complete,  and  the  .iron  cross  from  the 
market-place  was  brought  home  by  the  soldiers 
in  token  of  triumph,  never  was  joy  more  tu 
multuous.  In  all  this  time  Samuel  Adams, 
senior,  was  in  the  forefront  of  public  affairs. 
He  sat  in  the  Assembly,  and  was  proposed  by 
that  body  for  the  Council  or  upper  house,  but 
was  rejected  by  Shirley.  He  was  a  member  of 
most  of  the  military  committees,  in  that  day 
the  most  important  of  the  legislature  ;  there 


20  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

are  facts  showing  that  his  judgment  was  espe 
cially  deferred  to  in  affairs  of  that  kind. 

Encouraged  by  the  success  at  Cape  Breton, 
the  colonists  planned  still  further  enterprises 
against  the  French,  in  all  which  Massachusetts, 
stimulated  by  Shirley,  who  had  the  heart  and 
the  head  of  a  soldier,  took  part  with  enthusiasm. 
When  in  1748  the  magnificent  fruits  of  New 
England  energy  were  all  resigned  at  the  peace 
of  Aix  la  Chapelle,  a  deep  resentment  was  felt. 

In  matters  relating  to  peace  and  war  the 
elder  Adams  was  much  concerned.  The  son 
meantime,  trusting  himself  more  and  more  to 
the  element  for  which  he  was  born,  figured 
prominently  in  the  clubs  and  wrote  copiously 
for  the  newspapers.  One  can  easily  see  how 
business  must  have  been  carried  on  with  some 
slackness,  since  the  two  partners  were  marked 
by  such  characteristics. 

In  1748  Samuel  Adams,  senior,  died,  bequeath 
ing  to  the  younger  Samuel  a  third  of  his  estate, 
—  his  sister  and  his  brother  (who  is  mentioned 
about  this  time  in  the  town  records  as  clerk  of 
the  market)  receiving  their  shares.  In  1749 
he  married  Elizabeth  Checkley,  daughter  of 
the  minister  of  the  "  New  South,"  established 
himself  in  Purchase  Street,  and  gave  himself, 
with  a  mind  by  no  means  undivided,  to  the 
management  of  the  malt-house. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  PRE-REVOLTJTIONARY   STRUGGLE. 

LEAVING  "  Sam,  the  Maltster,"  to  wait 
through  the  years  that  must  intervene  before 
the  hour  shall  really  strike  for  him,  a  survey 
must  be  made  of  the  institutions  into  the  midst 
of  which  he  was  born,  and  of  the  momentous 
dispute  in  which  he  was  presently  to  stand  forth 
as  a  figure  of  the  first  importance. 

According  to  the  original  charter,  which  was 
that  of  a  mere  trading  corporation,  vaguely 
drawn,  and  which  was  converted  without  color 
of  law  into  the  foundation  of  an  independent 
state,  the  affairs  of  Massachusetts  were  to  be 
managed  by  a  governor,  deputy-governor,  and 
eighteen  assistants,  who  were  to  hold  monthly 
meetings  for  that  purpose.  These  officials  were 
to  be  elected,  and  a  general  oversight  to  be  ex 
ercised,  by  the  stockholders  of  the  company  to 
whom  the  charter  was  granted.  The  colonists 
were  "to  enjoy  the  rights  of  Englishmen,"  but 
had  no  share  in  the  direction  of  affairs.  The 
company  was  transferred,  however,  very  soon, 


22  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

to  New  England,  and  the  settlement,  instead  of 
being  subject  to  stockholders  across  the  water, 
became  then  self  -  governed,  an  arrangement 
quite  different  from  that  at  first  contemplated. 

For  the  first  half  century,  through  a  provi 
sion  of  the  General  Court  enacted  in  1631,  no 
man  was  to  become  a  freeman  unless  he  were 
a  church  member.  Since  not  a  fourth  part  of 
the  adult  population  were  ever  church  mem 
bers,  the  democracy  had  many  of  the  features 
of  an  oligarchy.  Among  themselves  the  free 
men  cherished  a  spirit  strongly  democratic  ;  but 
towards  those  outside,  the  spiritual  aristocracy 
preserved  a  haughty  bearing. 

At  the  end  of  fifty  years,  beneath  Charles  II. 
and  James  II.,  came  a  crisis.  When  at  length 
in  1692  Sir  William  Phips,  a  rough  and  en 
terprising  son  of  the  colony,  appeared  as  gov 
ernor,  he  brought  with  him  a  document  which 
was  far  from  pleasing  to  the  people,  who  had 
hoped  from  the  protestant  champion,  William 
III.,  a  restoration  of  the  old  institutions.  High 
notions  of  his  prerogative,  however,  were  enter 
tained  by  the  new  king,  and  were  not  opposed 
by  even  the  wisest  among  his  advisers.  Mas 
sachusetts,  Plymouth,  and  Maine  were  compre 
hended  under  one  jurisdiction,  New  Hampshire 
being  left  independent.  The  old  freedom  of 
Massachusetts  was  to  a  large  extent  suspended. 


THE  FEE-REVOLUTIONARY  STRUGGLE.       23 

The  theocracy,  too,  was  abolished  ;  toleration 
was  secured  to  all  religious  sects  except  pa 
pists  ;  and  the  right  of  suffrage,  once  limited  to 
church  members,  was  bestowed  on  all  inhabit 
ants  possessing  a  freehold  of  the  annual  value 
of  forty  shillings,  or  personal  property  to  the 
amount  of  <£40.  The  appointment  of  the  gov 
ernor,  lieutenant-governor,  and  colonial  secre 
tary  was  reserved  to  the  king.  The  governor 
possessed  the  power  of  summoning,  adjourning, 
and  dissolving  the  General  Court,  and  a  nega 
tive  upon  all  its  acts.  He  was  dependent  upon 
it,  however,  for  his  salary  by  annual  grant. 
Two  boards,  as  before,  were  to  constitute  the 
legislature  or  General  Court,  a  Council  and 
House  of  Representatives.  The  members  of 
the  latter  body  were  to  be  chosen  annually  by 
the  towns,  and  had  the  important  power  of  the 
purse.  The  Council  was  to  consist  of  twenty- 
eight  members,  who  in  the  first  instance  were 
to  be  appointed  by  the  king.  Afterwards,  a 
new  Council  for  each  year  was  to  be  chosen  by 
joint  ballot  of  the  old  Council  and  the  Repre 
sentatives,  the  power  being  given  to  the  gov 
ernor  of  rejecting  thirteen  out  of  the  twenty- 
eight.  To  all  official  acts  the  concurrence  of 
the  Council  was  necessary,  and  to  the  king  was 
reserved  the  power  of  annulling  any  act  within 
three  years  of  its  passage. 


24  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

To  turn  to  judicial  institutions :  at  the  head 
stood  a  Superior  Court,  presided  over  by  a 
chief  justice  and  subordinate  judges.  These 
were  appointed  by  the  governor  in  Council ; 
so,  too,  were  inferior  magistrates,  as  justices  of 
the  peace  in  each  county.  In  course  of  time, 
the  regular  number  of  judges  in  the  Superior 
Court  came  to  be  five,  and  to  it  was  assigned 
all  the  jurisdiction  of  the  English  Common 
Pleas,  King's  Bench,  and  Exchequer.  There 
were  also  county  courts  of  Common  Pleas  for 
smaller  civil  cases,  Courts  of  Sessions,  com 
posed  of  justices  of  the  peace  in  each  county, 
for  inferior  criminal  cases,  and  Courts  of  Pro 
bate  for  settling  the  estates  of  persons  deceased. 
An  attorney-general  was  appointed  to  conduct 
public  prosecutions.  From  1697  Courts  of  Vice- 
Admiralty  existed,  empowered  to  try  without 
jury  all  maritime  and  revenue  cases  ;  but  these 
tribunals  were  from  the  first  strenuously  op 
posed.  From  1698  a  Court  of  Chancery  also 
existed.  The  governor  was  commander-in-chief 
of  the  militia,  whose  officers  he  was  also  em 
powered  to  appoint.  In  1728  the  charter  of 
William  and  Mary  was  amended,  after  earnest 
disputes  between  Governor  Shute  and  the  As 
sembly  (the  lower  house  of  the  legislature),  by 
a  clause  giving  the  governor  power  to  negative 
the  speaker  chosen  by  the  Assembly  ;  and  also 


THE  PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  STRUGGLE.       25 

by  a  clause  making  it  impossible  for  the  house 
to  adjourn,  by  its  own  vote,  for  a  longer  term 
than  two  days. 

With  these  representative  and  judicial  insti 
tutions,  which  require  from  the  reader  careful 
attention,  concerned  as  he  will  be  in  our  story 
with  a  variety  of  constitutional  disputes,  Mas 
sachusetts,  absorbing  Plymouth  and  Maine, 
passed  from  her  colonial  into  her  provincial 
period.  Though  greatly  restricted  in  her  in 
dependence,  the  new  order  was  really  in  some 
respects  a  vast  improvement  upon  the  old. 
Through  the  canceling  of  the  condition  of 
church  membership,  citizenship  became  prac 
tically  open  to  all ;  for  the  pecuniary  qualifica 
tion  was  so  small  as  to  embarrass  very  few. 
Though  the  legislature  was  cramped,  the  town- 
meetings  were  unrestrained,  and  through  the 
enlargement  of  the  franchise  gained  a  power 
and  interest  which  they  had  not  before  pos 
sessed. 

The  prevailing  tone  of  American  writers, 
who,  as  historians  or  biographers,  have  treated 
the  Revolutionary  struggle,  has  been  that  the 
case  against  the  British  government  was  a  per 
fectly  plain  one,  that  its  conduct  was  aggres 
sion  in  no  way  to  be  justified  or  palliated,  and 
as  blundering  as  it  was  wicked.  An  illustrious 


26  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Englishman,  E.  A.  Freeman,  however,  has  just 
written  :  "  In  the  War  of  Independence  there 
is  really  nothing  of  which  either  side  need  be 
ashamed.  Each  side  acted  as  it  was  natural 
for  each  side  to  act.  We  can  now  see  that  both 
King  George  and  the  British  nation  were  quite 
wrong ;  but  for  them  to  have  acted  otherwise 
than  they  did  would  have  needed  a  superhu 
man  measure  of  wisdom,  which  few  kings  and 
few  nations  ever  had." 

Our  Fourth  of  July  orators  may  well  assume 
a  tone  somewhat  less  confident,  when  thought 
ful  men  in  England,  not  at  all  ill-disposed  to 
ward  America,  and  not  at  all  blind  to  the 
blunders  and  crimes  which  strew  the  course  of 
English  history,  pass  even  now,  after  a  hun 
dred  years,  such  a  judgment  as  this  which  has 
been  quoted.  A  candid  American  student,  ad 
mire  as  he  may  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of  our 
Revolutionary  fathers,  is  compelled  to  admit, 
in  this  calmer  time,  that  it  was  by  no  means 
plain  sailing  for  King  George  and  his  minis 
ters,  and  that  they  deserve  something  better 
from  us  than  the  unsparing  obloquy  which  for 
the  most  part  they  have  received. 

The  love  of  the  colonists  toward  England 
had  become  estranged  in  other  ways  than  by 
"taxation  without  representation."  In  Mas 
sachusetts,  the  destruction  of  the  theocracy 


THE  PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  STRUGGLE.       27 

through  the  new  charter  was  a  severe  shock 
to  puritan  feeling.  The  enforced  toleration  of 
all  sects  but  papists  was  a  constant  source  of 
wrath ;  and  when,  as  the  eighteenth  century 
advanced,  the  possibility  of  the  introduction  of 
bishops  and  a  church  establishment  appeared, 
a  matter  which  was  most  persistently  and  un 
wisely  urged,1  there  was  deep-seated  resentment. 
But  another  stone  of  offense,  which,  unlike 
the  fear  of  prelacy,  affected  all  America  as  well 
as  New  England,  and  was  therefore  very  im 
portant,  existed  in  the  trade  regulations.  By 
the  revolution  of  1688,  the  royal  power  in 
England  was  restrained,  but  that  of  Parlia 
ment  and  the  mercantile  and  manufacturing 
classes  greatly  increased.  The  "  Board  of 
Trade"  was  then  constituted,  to  whom  were 
committed  the  interests  of  commerce  and  a 
general  oversight  of  the  colonies.  Adam  Smith 
was  still  in  the  far  future,  and  the  policy  con 
stantly  pursued  was  neither  humane  nor  wise. 
We  may  judge  of  the  temper  of  the  Board  from 
the  fact  that  even  John  Locke,  its  wisest  and 
one  of  its  most  influential  members,  solemnly 
advised  William  to  appoint  a  captain-general 

i  Grahame,  Hist,  of  V.  S.,  iv.  317.  As  far  as  New  England  was 
concerned  this  fear  of  ecclesiasticism  was  as  potent  a  source  of 
estrangement  as  any.  Some  writers  regard  it  as  the  principal 
cause  of  bad  feeling.  See  John  Adams,  the  Statesman  of  the  Rev 
olution,  by  Hon.  Mellen  Chamberlain.  Boston,  1884. 


28  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

over  the  colonies  with  dictatorial  power,  and 
the  whole  Board  recommended,  in  1701,  a  re 
sumption  of  the  colonial  charters  and  the  in 
troduction  of  such  "an  administration  of  gov 
ernment  as  shall  make  them  duly  subservient 
to  England."  The  welfare  of  the  colonies  was 
systematically  sacrificed  to  the  aggrandizement 
of  the  gains  of  English  manufacturers  and 
merchants.  Sometimes  the  provisions  turned 
out  to  the  advantage  of  the  colonists,  but  more 
frequently  there  was  oppression  without  any 
compensating  good. 

^X  Restrictions,  designed  for  securing  to  the 
mother-country  a  monopoly  of  the  colonial 
trade,  crushed  out  every  industry  that  could 
compete  with  those  of  England.  For  such 
products  as  they  were  permitted  to  raise,  the 
colonies  had  no  lawful  market  but  England,  nor 
could  they  buy  anywhere,  except  in  England, 
the  most  important  articles  which  they  needed. 
With  the  French  West  India  islands  a  most 
profitable  intercourse  had  sprung  up,  the  colo 
nists  shipping  thither  lumber  and  provisions, 
and  receiving  in  return  sugar  and  molasses,  the 
consumption  of  which  latter  article,  in  the  wide 
spread  manufacture  of  rum,  was  very  large.  In 
1733  was  passed  the  famous  "  Sugar  Act,"  the 
design  of  which  was  to  help  the  British  West 
Indies  at  the  expense  of  the  northern  colonies, 


THE  P RE-REVOLUTIONARY  STRUGGLE.       29 

and  by  which  all  the  trade  with  the  French 
islands  became  unlawful,  so  that  no  legitimate 
source  of  supply  remained  open  but  the  far  less 
convenient  English  islands.  The  restrictions, 
indeed,  were  not  and  could  not  be  enforced. 
Every  sailor  was  a  smuggler ;  every  colonist 
knew  more  or  less  of  illicit  traffic  or  industry. 
The  demoralization  came  to  pass  which  always 
results  when  a  community,  even  with  good  rea 
son,  is  full  of  law-breakers,  and  the  disposition 
became  constantly  more  and  more  unfriendly 
toward  the  mother  country.  Said  Arthur 
Young  :  "  Nothing  can  be  more  idle  than  to 
say  that  this  set  of  men,  or  the  other  adminis 
tration,  or  that  great  minister,  occasioned  the 
American  war.  It  was  not  the  Stamp  Act,  nor 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act ;  it  was  neither 
Lord  Rockingham  nor  Lord  North,  —  but  it 
was  that  baleful  spirit  of  commerce  that  wished 
to  govern  great  nations  on  the  maxims  of  the 
counter." 

The  Board  of  Trade,  however,  the  main 
source  of  the  long  series  of  acts  by  which  the 
English  dependencies  were  systematically  re 
pressed,  should  receive  execration  not  too  se 
vere.  They  simply  were  not  in  advance  of 
their  age.  When,  after  1688,  the  commercial 
spirit  gained  an  ascendency  quite  new  in  Eng 
land,  the  colonists,  far  off,  little  known,  and  de- 


30  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

spised,  were  pitched  upon  as  fair  game,  if  they 
could  be  made  to  yield  advantage.  In  so  using 
them,  the  men  in  power  were  only  showing 
what  has  so  often  passed  as  patriotism,  that 
mere  expansion  of  selfishness,  inconsistent  with 
any  broad  Christian  sentiment,  which  seeks 
wealth  and  might  for  the  state  at  the  expense 
of  the  world  outside.  It  was  inhumanity  from 
which  the  world  is  rising,  it  may  be  hoped,  — 
for  which  it  would  be  wrong  to  blame  those 
men  of  the  past  too  harshly.  The  injustice, 
however,  as  always,  brought  its  penalty ;  and 
in  this  case  the  penalty  was  the  utter  estrange 
ment  of  the  hearts  of  a  million  of  Englishmen 
from  the  land  they  had  once  loved,  and  the 
ultimate  loss  of  a  continent. 

Before  the  Massachusetts  settlement,  it  had 
been  stipulated  in  the  charter  that  all  the  colo 
nists  were  to  have  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
Englishmen,  and  this  provision  they  often  cited. 
Magna  Charta  was  but  a  confirmation  of  what 
had  stood  in  and  before  the  time  of  Edward 
the  Confessor,  —  the  primitive  freedom,  indeed, 
which  had  prevailed  in  the  German  woods. 
This  had  been  again  and  again  re-confirmed. 
Documents  of  Edward  I.  and  Edward  III.,  the 
Petition  of  Right  of  1628,  the  Bill  of  Rights  of 
1689,  had  given  such  re-confirmations ;  and  the 
descendants  of  the  twenty  thousand  Puritans, 


THE  PRE-REVOLUT10NARY  STRUGGLE.       31 

who,  coming  over  between  1620  and  1640,  had 
been  the  seed  from  which  sprung  the  race  of 
New  Englanders,  knew  these  things  in  a  gen 
eral  way.  They  were  to  the  full  as  intelligent 
in  perceiving  what  were  the  rights  of  English 
men,  and  as  tenacious  in  upholding  them,  as 
any  class  that  had  remained  in  the  old  home. 
Left  to  themselves  for  sixty  years,  there  was 
little  need  of  an  assertion  of  rights  ;  but  when 
at  last  interference  began  from  across  the  wa 
ter,  it  was  met  at  the  outset  by  protest.  Par 
liament  is  a  thousand  leagues  of  stormy  sea 
away  from  us,  said  they.  That  body  cannot 
judge  us  well ;  most  of  all,  our  representatives 
have  no  place  in  it.  We  owe  allegiance  to  the 
king  indeed,  but  instead  of  Parliament,  our 
General  Court  shall  tax  and  make  laws  for  us. 
Such  claims,  often  asserted,  though  overruled, 
were  not  laid  aside,  and  at  length  in  1766  we 
find  Franklin  asserting  them  as  the  opinion  of 
America  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
It  cannot,  however,  be  said  that  New  Eng 
land  was  consistent  here.  In  1757,  for  in 
stance,  the  authority  of  Parliament  was  dis 
tinctly  admitted  by  the  General  Court  of  Mas 
sachusetts  ;  so  too  in  1761  ;  and  even  so  late  as 
1768,  it  is  admitted  "  that  his  Majesty's  high 
court  of  Parliament  is  the  supreme  legislative 
power  over  the  whole  empire." 


32  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

I  The  sum  and  substance  is  that  as  to  the  con- 
/stitutional  rights  of  the  colonists,  the  limits 
were,  in  particulars,  quite  undetermined,  both  in 
the  minds  of  English  statesmen,  and  also  among 
the  colonists  themselves.  What  "  the  privi 
leges  and  rights  of  Englishmen  "  were  was  not 
always  clearly  outlined,  and  the  student  finds 
sometimes  more,  sometimes  less,  insisted  on, 
according  as  the  temper  toward  the  old  world 
is  embittered,  or  good-natured.  As  events 
progress,  through  fear  of  prelatical  contrivings 
and  through  bad  trade  regulations,  as  has  been 
seen,  the  tone  becomes  more  and  more  exasper 
ated.  On  the  one  side  the  spirit  becomes  con 
stantly  more  independent ;  on  the  other  side, 
the  claims  take  on  a  new  shade  of  arrogance. 
When  the  first  decided  steps  toward  the  Rev 
olution  occur  in  1764,  in  the  agitations  con 
nected  with  the  Stamp  Act,  the  positions  in 
general  of  the  parties  in  the  dispute  may  be 
set  down  as  follows  :  "  Parliament  asserted  the 
right  to  make  laws  to  bind  the  colonies  in  all 
cases  whatsoever ;  the  colonies  claimed  that 
there  should  be  no  taxation  without  represen 
tation,  and  that,  since  they  had  no  representa 
tives  in  Parliament,  they  were  beyond  its  juris 
diction." 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  WRITS   OF  ASSISTANCE. 

SAM  ADAMS  at  twenty-eight,  with  a  wife, 
and  his  inheritance  now  in  his  hands  through 
the  death  of  his  father,  had  not  yet  begun  to 
play  his  proper  part  before  the  world.  The 
eyes  of  men  were  beginning  to  turn  toward 
him,  indeed,  as  a  man  with  a  head  to  manage 
a  political  snarl,  and  a  pen  to  express  thoughts 
that  could  instruct  and  kindle.  He  was  still, 
however,  the  somewhat  shiftless  manager  of 
the  Purchase  Street  malt-house,  and  the  town 
censors  no  doubt  said  it  would  be  vastly  better 
for  him  to  mind  his  private  business  rather 
than  dabble  as  he  did  in  public  matters.  That 
he  was  a  good  student  and  thinker  was  shown 
by  his  contributions  to  the  "  Public  Adver 
tiser." 

He  was  devoted  also  to  the  discussions  of  the 
debating-clubs.  As  yet  the  Revolution  seemed 
far  off.  The  people  of  Massachusetts,  it  has 
been  said,  were  never  in  a  more  easy  situation 
than  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  France  in 


34  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

1749.  The  whole  charge  for  the  expedition 
against  Cape  Breton  was  reimbursed  to  them 
by  Parliament,  so  that  the  Province  was  set 
free  from  a  heavy  debt,  a  liberality  which  of 
course  made  it  easier  to  swallow  the  bitter  pill 
of  restoring  Louisburg  to  the  French.  With 
his  patrimony  Samuel  Adams  had  apparently 
inherited  his  father's  friendships  and  enmities, 
among  the  latter  being  a  feud  with  Thomas 
Hutchinson,  a  man  fast  rising  to  the  position 
of  leading  spirit  of  the  Province,  already  in  the 
Council,  and  destined  to  fill  in  turn,  sometimes 
indeed  to  combine  at  once,  the  most  distin 
guished  positions.  Governor  Shirley's  popu 
larity  vanished  before  ill  success,  which  over 
took  his  later  enterprises.  He  gave  way  at 
length  in  1756  to  Thomas  Pownall,  a  man  of 
wide  experience  in  colonial  life  and  of  much 
tact,  so  that  while  maintaining  firmly  the  pre 
rogative  of  the  king,  in  the  chronic  dispute  be 
tween  ministry  and  Assembly,  which  was  never 
long  at  rest,  he  contrived  still  to  retain  the 
good-will  of  the  people,  who  did  him  great 
honor  at  his  departure.  Samuel  Adams,  who 
in  Shirley  had  opposed  the  union  of  the  civil 
and  military  powers  in  one  head,  was,  like  his 
fellow-citizens,  better  pleased  with  Pownall,  a 
good  opinion  which  the  ex-governor  afterward 
abundantly  justified  by  bravely  and  intelli- 


THE   WRITS   OF  ASSISTANCE 

t  A 

gently  defending  in    Parliament   the  ^ 
America. 

In  1758  an  incident  occurred  which  attracted 
much  public  attention.  An  attempt  was  then 
made  to  seize  and  sell  the  property  of  Samuel 
Adams,  senior,  on  account  of  his  connection 
many  years  before  with  the  "  Land  Bank 
Scheme,"  a  device  perhaps  not  the  wisest, 
which  had  been  resorted  to  for  avoiding  great 
loss  which  threatened  the  colony  in  consequence 
of  a  certain  interference  of  the  home  govern 
ment  in  the  finances.  At  the  time  it  had  been 
asserted  that  each  director  would  be  held  indi 
vidually  responsible  for  the  liabilities  of  the 
concern  ;  but  we  may  well  believe  that  for 
Samuel  Adams  it  was  a  matter  somewhat  start 
ling  to  read  in  the  "  News  Letter,"  ten  years 
after  his  father  had  been  in  his  grave,  and  sev 
enteen  years  after  the  affair  had  taken  place, 
a  sheriff's  notice  that  the  property  he  had  in 
herited  would  be  sold  at  auction  "  for  the  more 
speedy  finishing  the  Land  Bank  scheme."  1 
The  sale  did  not  take  place,  for  when  the  sher 
iff  appeared  he  found  himself  confronted  by  a 
sturdy  citizen,  whose  resistance  he  was  forced 
to  respect.  Soon  afterward  an  act  was  passed 
by  the  legislature  liberating  the  directors  from 
personal  liability  —  an  act  the  significance  of 

1  Boston  News  Letter,  August  10  and  17,  1758. 


36  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

which  was  not  at  the  time  understood,  but 
which  was  often  referred  to  subsequently  as  a 
memorable  precedent,  in  the  strife  between  the 
colony  and  Parliament. 

Turning  over  the  Boston  town  records,  as 
the  venerable  rolls  lie  in  their  handsome  sur 
roundings  in  the  great  city  hall  that  stands 
on  the  site  of  the  little  wooden  school  of  Sam 
uel  Adams's  boyhood,  one  first  finds  his  name 

.in   1753,  on   the   committee   to   visit    schools. 

^Scarcely  a  year  passes  from  that  date  until 
the  town  -  meetings  cease,  crushed  out  by  the 
battalions  of  Gage,  when  his  name  does  not 
appear  in  connections  becoming  constantly 
more  honorable.  'jOie.record,  first  in  the  hand 

/of  Ezekiel  GoldthVait,  town  clerk,  and  after 
1761  in  that  of  William  Cooper,  though  mea 
gre,  is  complete  enough  to  show  how  intimately 
his  life  is  connected  with  these  meetings  of  the 
freemen.  He  serves  in  offices  large  and  small, 
on  committees  to  see  that  chimneys  are  prop 
erly  inspected,  as  fire-ward,  to  see  that  pre 
cautions  are  taken  against  the  spread  of  the 
small-pox,  as  moderator,  on  the  committee  to 
instruct  the  representatives  to  the  Assembly,  as 
representative  himself.  From  1756  to  1764  he 
was  annually  elected  one  of  the  tax-collectors, 
and  in  connection  with  this  office  came  the 
gravest  suspicion  of  a  serious  moral  dereliction 


THE    WRITS   OF  ASSISTANCE.  37 

which  his  enemies  could  ever  lay  to  his  charge. 
Embarrassments  which  weighed  upon  the  peo 
ple  caused  payments  to  be  slow.  The  tax-collec 
tors  fell  into  arrears,  and  it  was  at  length  en 
tered  upon  the  records  that  they  were  indebted 
to  the  town  in  the  sum  of  £9,878.  The  Tories 
persisted  afterwards  in  making  this  deficiency 
a  ground  of  accusation,  and  Hutchinson,  in  the 
third  volume  of  his  history,  deliberately  calls  it 
a  "  defalcation."  No  candid  investigator  can 
feel  otherwise  than  that  to  Samuel  Adams's 
contemporaries  any  misappropriation  of  funds 
by  him  was  an  absurd  supposition.  Without 
stopping  to  inquire  how  it  may  have  been  with 
his  fellow  collectors,  it  is  quite  certain  that  in 
his  case  a  feeling  of  humanity,  very  likely  an 
absence  of  business  vigor,  stood  in  the  way  of 
his  efficiency  in  the  position.  His  townsmen 
wanted  him  for  a  high  office,  a  sure  proof  that 
they  had  lost  no  confidence  in  him.  A  suc 
cessor  was  appointed  to  collect  the  arrears,  the 
Province  being  asked  to  authorize  the  town's 
action.  "  Neither  the  historian  nor  the  con 
temporary  records  furnish  any  evidence  to  re 
but  the  presumption  that  his  ill  success  as  a 
collector  was  excusable  if  not  unavoidable."  1 
In  1760  the  prudent  Pownall  was  succeeded 

1  See  Province  Laws,  p.  27,  note,  edited  by  Hon.  Ellis  Ames 
and  A.  C.  Goodell,  Jr.,  Esq.     The  latter  gentleman  has  com- 


38  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

by  Francis  Bernard,  a  character  of  quite  differ 
ent  temper.  Botta  has  described  him  as  a  man 
of  excellent  judgment,  sincerely  attached  to  the 
interests  of  the  Province,  and  of  irreproachable 
character.  He  was  a  defender  of  the  preroga 
tive  of  the  Crown,  however,  ardent  in  disposi 
tion,  and  quite  without  the  pliancy  and  adroit 
ness  which  had  served  his  predecessor  so  well. 
He  had  before  been  governor  of  New  Jersey, 
and  now  was  promoted  to  the  more  conspicu 
ous  post  in  Massachusetts.  He  had  received 
an  Oxford  education,  was  a  man  of  refined  and 
scholarly  tastes,  and  is  said  to  have  been  able 
to  perform  the  astonishing  feat  of  repeating  the 
whole  of  Shakespeare  from  memory.  There  is 
no  reason  to  doubt  the  authorities  who  speak 
well  of  Bernard,  though  the  portrait  that  has 
coma  down  to  us  from  the  patriot  writers  is 
dark.  Events  presently  threw  governor  and 
Province  into  positions  of  violent  antagonism 
to  one  another.  To  the  governor  the  people 
seemed  seditious  and  unreasonable  ;  to  the  peo 
ple  the  governor  appeared  arbitrary  and  irrita 
ble,  and  the  relation  at  length  became  one  of 
thorough  hatred.  At  first  he  was  liberally 
treated,  however,,  receiving  a  grant  of  ,£1,300 
for  his  salary,  aW  the  island  of  Mt.  Desert 

pletely  cleared  the  character  of  Samuel  Adams  in  a  paper 
read  before  the  Mass.  Histor.  Society  in  the  spring  of  1883. 


THE    WRITS  OF  ASSISTANCE.  39 

in  Maine,  favors  to  which  he  would  have  re 
sponded  no  doubt  graciously  if,  as  an  English 
country  gentleman,  his  every  nerve  had  not 
been  presently  rasped  by  the  preposterous  lev- 
elers  with  whom  he  was  thrown  into  contact. 

The  fall  of  Quebec  in  1759,  immediately 
preceding  the  accession  of  Bernard,  was  an  im 
portant  crisis  in  the  history  of  Massachusetts. 
The  colonists  had  learned  to  estimate  their  mil 
itary  strength  more  highly  than  ever  before. 
Side  by  side  with  British  regulars,  they  had 
fought  against  Montcalm  and  proved  their 
prowess.  Officers  qualified  by  the  best  ex 
perience  to  lead,  and  soldiers  hardened  by  the 
roughest  campaigning  into  veterans,  abounded 
in  all  the  towns.  A  more  independent  spirit 
appeared,  and  this  was  greatly  strengthened 
by  the  circumstance  that  the  destruction  of  the 
power  of  France  suddenly  put  an  end  to  the 
incubus  which,  from  the  foundation  of  things, 
had  weighed  upon  New  England,  viz.,  the  dread 
of  an  invasion  from  the  north.  Coincident  with 
this  great  invigoration  of  the  tone  of  the  Prov 
ince  came  certain  changes  in  the  English  pol 
icy,  changes  which  came  about  very  naturally, 
but  which,  in  the  temper  that  had  begun  to 
prevail,  aroused  fierce  resentment.  As  the 
Seven  Years'  War  drew  towards  its  close,  it 
grew  plain  that  England  had  incurred  an  enor- 


40  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

mous  debt.  Her  responsibilities,  moreover,  had 
largely  increased.  All  India  had  fallen  into  her 
hands  as  well  as  French  America.  At  the  ex 
pense  of  her  defeated  rival,  her  dominion  was 
immensely  expanding ;  vast  was  the  glory,  but 
vast  also  the  care  and  the  financial  burden.  A 
faithful,  sharp-eyed  minister,  George  Grenville, 
seeing  well  the  needs  of  the  hour,  and  searching 
as  no  predecessor  had  done  into  the  corruptions 
and  slacknesses  of  administration,  at  once  fast 
ened  upon  the  unenforced  revenue  laws  as  a 
field  where  reform  was  needed.  Industry  on 
land,  as  we  have  seen,  was  badly  hampered  in 
a  score  of  ways,  and  on  the  sea  the  wings  of 
commerce  were  cruelly  clipped. 

Grenville 's  imprudence  was  as  conspicuous 
as  his  eye  was  keen  and  his  fidelity  persistent. 
As  the  first  step  in  a  series  of  financial  meas- 
>-  ures  which  should  enable  England  to  meet  her 
enormous  debt  and  her  great  expenses,  he  set 
in  operation  a  vigorous  exaction  of  neglected 
customs  and  imposts.  The  vessels  of  the  navy 
on  the  American  coast  were  commissioned  to 
act  in  the  service  of  the  revenue,  each  officer 
becoming  a  customs  official.  At  once  all  con 
traband  trade  was  subjected  to  the  most  ener 
getic  attack,  no  respect  being  shown  to  places 
or  persons.  In  particular,  the  Sugar  Act,  by 
which  an  effort  had  been  made  to  cut  off  the 


THE    WRITS   OF  ASSISTANCE.  41 

interchange  of  American  lumber  and  provisions 
for  the  sugar  and  molasses  of  the  French  West 
Indies,  was  strongly  enforced,  and  the  New 
England  sailors,  with  the  enterprising  mer 
chants  of  Boston,  Newport,  Salem,  and  Ports 
mouth  behind  them,  flamed  out  into  the  fierc 
est  resentment.  Whereas  for  many  a  year  the 
collectors,  from  their  offices  on  the  wharves, 
had  winked  placidly  at  the  full  cargoes  from 
St.  Domingo  and  St.  Christopher,  brought  into 
port  beneath  their  very  eyes,  now  all  was  to 
be  changed  in  a  moment.  Each  sleepy  tide- 
waiter  suddenly  became  an  Argus,  and,  backed 
up  by  a  whole  fleet  full  of  rough  and  ready 
helpers,  proceeded  to  put  an  end  to  the  most 
lucrative  trade  New  England  possessed. 

To  help  forward  this  new  activity  in  the  car- A 
rying  out   of   laws  so  often  heretofore  a  dead  \ 
letter,  certain  legal  forms  known  as  "  writs  of j 
assistance  "  were  recommended,  to  be  granted  / 
by  the  Superior  Court  to  the  officers    of    the 
customs,  giving  them  authority  to  search  the 
houses  of  persons  suspected  of  smuggling.    The 
employment  of   such  a  power,  though  contra 
band  goods  were  often,  no  doubt,  concealed  in 
private  houses,  was    regarded    as  a  great  out 
rage.     Writs  of  assistance  in  England  were  le 
gal  and  usual.     If  they  were  ever  justifiable, 
as  English  authorities  said  then  and  still  say, 


42  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

they  are  justifiable  under  such  circumstances 
as  prevailed  in  America.  Stephen  Sewall, 
however,  chief  justice  of  the  Province,  when 
applied  to  for  such  a  writ,  in  November,  1760, 
just  after  the  fall  of  Quebec,  expressed  doubt 
as  to  their  legality,  and  as  to  the  power  of  the 
court  to  grant  them.  But  the  application  had 
been  made  on  the  part  of  the  Crown  by  Pax- 
ton,  the  chief  officer  of  customs  at  Boston,  and 
could  not  be  dismissed  without  a  hearing. 
While  the  matter  was  pending  Sewall  died, 
and  his  successor  was  none  other  than  Thomas 
Hutchinson,  who  already  held  the  offices  of 
lieutenant-governor,  member  of  the  Council, 
and  judge  of  probate.  He  received  his  new 
position  from  Governor  Bernard,  being  pre 
ferred  to  Colonel  James  Otis,  to  whom  the  post 
was  said  to  have  been  promised  by  Governor 
Shirley,  years  before. 

Now  it  is  that  a  figure  of  the  highest  im- 
\  portance  in  the  story  of  Samuel  Adams  first 
comes  prominently  upon  the  scene.  At  the  ses 
sions  of  the  court  there  had  lately  sat  among 
the  lawyers,  in  the  tie-wig  and  black  gown 
then  customary,  a  certain  "  plump,  round-faced, 
smooth-skinned,  short-necked,  eagle-eyed  young 
politician,"  James  Otis,  the  younger,  already  a 
man  of  mark,  for  he  held  the  lucrative  position 
of  advocate-general,  the  official  legal  adviser  of 


THE    WRITS   OF  ASSISTANCE.  43 

the  government.  It  was  for  him  now  to  de 
fend  the  case  of  the  officers  of  the  customs.  He, 
however,  refused,  resigned  his  commission,  and 
with  Oxenbridge  Thacher,  a  patriotic  and  elo 
quent  lawyer,  was  retained  by  the  merchants 
of  Boston  and  Salem  to  undertake  their  cause. 
Hutch inson,  whose  invaluable  history  relates 
with  a  certain  old-fashioned  stiffness  but  with 
much  calm  dignity  the  story  of  Massachusetts, 
does  not  forget  himself,  even  when  he  comes  to 
the  events  in  which  he  himself  was  an  actor. 
His  recital  maintains  its  tone  of  quiet  modera 
tion  even  when  his  theme  becomes  that  bitter 
strife,  in  which,  fighting  to  the  last,  he  was 
himself  utterly  borne  down.  It  is  a  disfigure 
ment  of  the  narrative  that  he  sometimes  as 
cribes  mean  motives  to  the  champions  who 
faced  him  in  the  battle  ;  but  the  wonder  is, 
under  the  circumstances,  that  the  men  with 
whom  he  so  exchanged  hate  for  hate  stand 
forth  in  his  page  with  so  little  detraction. 
Hutchinson  declares  the  conduct  of  James  Otis, 
in  the  case  of  the  writs  of  assistance,  to  have 
been  caused  by  chagrin,  because  his  father  had 
failed  to  receive  the  position  of  chief  justice. 
What  weight  this  charge  is  entitled  to  will  be 
considered  hereafter. 

Among  the   high  services  rendered  by  John 
Adams  is  certainly  to  be  counted  the  fact  that 


44  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

in  his  faithfully  kept  diary  and  familiar  letters, 
from  his  youth  in  Shirley's  day  down  to  his 
patriarchal  age  at  Quincy,  when  his  son  was 
President  of  the  United  States,  we  have  the 
most  complete  and  graphic  picture  extant  of 
America's  most  memorable  period.  The  record 
is  in  parts  almost  as  naive  as  that  of  Sewall, 
41  the  New  England  Pepys,"  and  gains  as  much 
in  value  from  the  foibles  of  the  writer,  his  self- 
consciousness,  his  honest  irascibility,  his  nar 
rowness,  as  it  does  from  his  strong  qualities. 
Here  is  his  picture  of  the  case  of  the  writs  of 
assistance  :  — 

Otis  was  a  flame  of  fire.  "With  a  promptitude 
f  classical  allusions,  a  depth  of  research,  a  rapid 
summary  of  historical  events  and  dates,  a  profusion 
of  legal  authorities,  a  prophetic  glance  of  his  eye  into 
futurity,  and  a  torrent  of  impetuous  eloquence,  he 
hurried  away  everything  before  him.  American  in 
dependence  was  then  and  there  born  ;  the  seeds  of 
patriots  and  heroes  were  then  and  there  sown,  to  de 
fend  the  vigorous  youth,  the  non  sine  diis  animosus 
infans.  Every  man  of  a  crowded  audience  appeared 
to  me  to  go  away,  as  I  did,  ready  to  take  arms  against 
writs  of  assistance.  Then  and  there  was  the  first 
scene  of  the  first  act  of  opposition  to  the  arbitrary 
claims  of  Great  Britain.  Then  and  there  the  child 
Independence  was  born." 

John  Adams  also  took  notes  of  the   speech 
of  Otis,  which  have  been  preserved.     It  lasted 


THE   WRITS  OF  ASSISTANCE.  45 

between  four  and  five  hours  and  was  indeed 
learned,  eloquent,  and  bold.  The  most  signifi 
cant  passage  is  that  in  which,  after  describing 
the  hardships  endured  by  the  colonies  through 
the  acts  of  navigation  and  trade,  with  passion 
ate  invective  he  denounced  taxation  without 
representation.  It  was  by  no  means  a  new 
claim,  but  the  masses  of  the  people  caught  the 
words  from  his  lips,  and  henceforth  it  came  to  be 
a  common  maxim  in  the  mouths  of  all  that  tax 
ation  without  representation  is  tyranny.  Hutch- 
inson  continued  the  case  to  the  next  term,  "  as 
the  practice  in  England  is  not  known,"  and 
James  Otis  went  forth  to  be  for  the  next  ten 
years  the  idol  of  the  people. 

John  Adams's  assertion,  that  in  this  magnifi 
cent  outburst  American  independence  was  born, 
will  scarcely  bear  examination.  The  speech 
was  not  to  such  an  extent  epoch-making.  Both 
orator  and  audience  were  thoroughly  loyal  and 
had  no  thought  of  a  contest  of  arms  with  the 
mother-country.  The  principle  asserted  was 
only  a  re-avowal  of  what,  as  has  been  seen,  had 
been  often  maintained.  The  argument  was 
simply  an  incident  in  the  long  continued  fric 
tion  between  parent-land  and  dependency,  not 
differing  in  essential  character  from  scores  of 
acts  showing  discontent  which  had  preceded, 
though  possessing  great  interest  from  the  ability 
and  daring  of  the  pleader. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   ASSEMBLY. 

IN  the  year  1764,  when  the  agitation  con 
cerning  the  impending  Stamp  Act  was  disturb 
ing  the  colonies,  Samuel  Adams  had  reached 
the  age  of  forty-two.  Even  now  his  hair  was 
becoming  gray,  and  a  peculiar  tremulousness  of 
the  head  and  hands  made  it  seem  as  if  he  were 
already  on  the  threshold  of  old  age.  His  con 
stitution,  nevertheless,  was  remarkably  sound. 
^  His  frame,  of  about  medium  stature,  was  mus- 
-<-Scular  and  well-knit.  His  eyes  were  a  clear  steel 
tray,  his  nose  prominent,  the  lower  part  of  his 
pace  capable  of  great  sternness  of  look,  but  in  or- 
jdinary  intercourse  wearing  a  genial  expression. 
Life  had  brought  to  him  much  of  hardship.  In 
1757  his  wife  had  died,  leaving  to  him  a  son, 
still  another  Samuel  Adams,  and  a  daughter. 
Misfortune  had  followed  him  in  business.  The 
malt-house  had  been  an  utter  failure  ;  his  patri 
mony  had  vanished  little  by  little,  so  that  be 
yond  the  fair  mansion  on  Purchase  Street,  with 
its  pleasant  harbor  view,  little  else  remained  to 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.        47 

him ;  the  house  was  becoming  rusty  through 
want  of  means  to  keep  it  in  proper  repair.  In 
his  public  relations,  fortune  had  thus  far  treated 
him  no  more  kindly.  As  tax-collector  he  had 
quite  failed  and  was  largely  in  arrears.  There 
was  a  possibility  of  losing  what  little  property 
remained  to  him,  and  of  having  his  name 
stained  with  dishonor.  His  hour,  however,  had 
now  come. 

In  May,  1764,  the  town  of  Boston  appointed, 
as  usual,  the  important  committee  to  instruct 
the  representatives  just  elected  to  the  General 
Court.  The  committee  were  "Richard  Dana, 
Esqr.,  Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  John  Ruddock, 
Esqr.,  Nathaniel  Bethune,  Esqr.,  Joseph  Green, 
Esqr.,"  and  to  Samuel  Adams  was  given  the 
task  of  drafting  the  paper.  He  submitted  it  in 
the  town-meeting  of  the  24th,  a  document  very 
memorable,  because  it  contains  the  first  public 
denial  of  the  right  of  the  British  Parliament  , 
to  put  in  operation  Grenville's  scheme  of  the/ 
Stamp  Act,  just  announced ;  and  the  first  sug-( 
gestion  of  a  union  of  the  colonies  for  redress  of* 
grievances.  Samuel  Adams's  original  draft  is 
still  in  existence,  the  first  public  document  he 
wrote  of  which  we  have  any  distinct  trace, 
though  there  is  ample  evidence  that  his  pen 
had  frequently  before  been  employed  in  that 
way.  One  may  well  have  a  feeling  of  awe  as 


48  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

he  reads  upon  the  yellowing  paper,  in  a  hand 
writing  delicate  but  very  firm,  the  protests 
and  recommendations  in  which  America  begins 
to  voice  her  aspirations  after  freedom.  Adams 
says : — 

y  "What  still  increases  our  apprehensions  is,  that 
these  unexpected  Proceedings  may  be  preparatory  to 
more  extensive  Taxations  upon  us.  For  if  our  Trade 
may  be  taxed,  why  not  our  Lands,  the  Produce  of 
our  lands,  and  in  short  everything  we  possess  or 
make  use  of  ?  This,  we  apprehend,  annihilates  our 
Charter  Rights  to  govern  and  tax  ourselves.  ...  If 
Taxes  are  laid  upon  us  in  any  shape  without  our 
having  a  legal  representation  where  they  are  laid, 
are  we  not  reduced  from  the  Character  of  free  Sub 
jects  to  the  miserable  State  of  tributary  Slaves  ?  V 


The  instructions  close  with  this  important 
suggestion  :  — 

"  As  his  Majesty's  other  Northern  American  Col 
onies  are  embarked  with  us  in  this  most  important 
Bottom,  we  further  desire  you  to  use  your  Endeavors 
that  their  weight  may  be  added  to  that  of  this  Prov 
ince  ;  that  by  the  united  Applications  of  all  who  are 
Aggrieved,  all  may  happily  attain  Redress." J 

1  The  first  part  of  this  extract  is  copied  from  Samuel  Ad 
ams's  autograph  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Bancroft.  The  con 
cluding  passage  does  not  stand  in  the  original  draft,  but  is 
copied  here  from  the  Boston  town  records. 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.         49 

Samuel  Adams  drew  up  this  document. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  respectable 
but  inconspicuous  citizens  associated  with  him 
on  the  committee  looked  to  him  to  supply  ideas 
as  well  as  form.  Patrick  Henry's  famous  "  Vir 
ginia  resolutions  "  denying  the  right  of  Parlia 
ment  to  tax  America  did  not  appear  until  a 
year  later.  Besides  the  distinct  denial  of  this 
right  contained  in  Samuel  Adams's  instruc 
tions,  and  the  suggestion  of  the  union  of  the 
colonies  for  a  redress  of  grievances,  the  doc 
ument  contained  an  assertion  of  the  important 
position  that  the  judges  should  be  dependent 
for  their  salaries  upon  the  general  Assembly. 
Also  the  hint  was  thrown  out  that,  if  burdens 
should  not  be  removed,  agreements  would  be 
entered  into  to  import  no  goods  from  Britain,  as 
a  measure  of  retaliation  upon  British  manufac 
turers.  As  the  story  develops,  it  will  quickly 
be  seen  how  important  these  suggestions  be 
came.  There  are,  in  fact,  few  documents  in 
the  whole  course  of  American  history  so  preg 
nant  with  great  events. 

The  legislature  met  in  June,  when  a  memo 
rial  was  forthwith  prepared  by  James  Otis  for 
transmission  to  the  agent  of  the  colony  in  Eng 
land,  who  was  expected  to  make  the  document 
known  to  the  English  public.  The  memorial 
followed  the  suggestions,  almost  the  very  words, 


50  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

of  Samuel  Adams.  A  committee  was  also  ap 
pointed  to  address  the  assemblies  of  the  sister 
colonies,  counseling  united  action  in  behalf  of 
their  common  rights.  The  same  year,  but  at  a 
later  session,  —  for  Bernard,  little  pleased  with 
the  tone  of  proceedings,  made  haste  to  pro 
rogue  the  Assembly,  —  the  house,  following 
again  the  Boston  instructions,  petitioned  the 
government  for  the  repeal  of  the  Sugar  Act. 

On  the  6th  of  December  of  this  year  Sam 
uel  Adams  married  for  his  second  wife  Eliza 
beth  Wells,  a  woman  of  efficiency  and  cheerful 
fortitude,  who,  through  the  forty  years  of  hard 
and  hazardous  life  that  remained  to  him,  walked 
sturdily  at  his  side.  It  required,  indeed,  no 
common  virtue  to  do  this,  for  while  Samuel 
Adams  superintended  the  birth  of  the  child 
Independence,  he  was  quite  careless  how  the 
table  at  home  was  spread,  and  as  to  the  con 
dition  of  his  own  children's  clothes  and  shoes. 
More  than  once  his  family  would  have  become 
objects  of  charity,  if  the  hands  of  the  wife 
had  not  been  ready  and  skillful. 

Early  in  1765  Grenville  brought  before  Par 
liament  his  scheme  for  the  Stamp  Act,  notice 
of  which  had  been  given  some  time  before. 
As  discussed  at  home,  it  had  excited  little  com 
ment  ;  some  of  the  colonial  agents  had  favored 
it.  Even  Franklin,  then  agent  for  Pennsylva- 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.         51 

nia,  apparently  regarding  its  operation  as  a  fore 
gone  conclusion,  had  taken  steps  to  have  a  friend 
appointed  stamp  distributor  in  his  Province. 
In  America,  indeed,  there  had  been  opposition. 
One  royal  governor,  no  other  than  Bernard, 
was  strongly  opposed  to  it,  winning  from  Lord 
Camden  in  a  discussion  with  Lord  Mansfield 
the  commendation  of  being  a  "  great,  good,  and 
sensible  man,  who  had  done  his  duty  like  a 
friend  to  his  country."  Hutchinson,  too,  the 
lieutenant-governor,  opposed  it.  "  It  cannot  be 
good  policy,"  he  said,  "  to  tax  the  Americans ; 
it  will  prove  prejudicial  to  the  national  inter 
ests.  You  will  lose  more  than  you  will  gain. 
Britain  reaps  the  profit  of  all  their  trade  and 
of  the  increase  of  their  substance."  Such  evi 
dences  of  discontent,  however,  as  were  given,  it 
did  not  seem  at  all  worth  while  to  regard.  The 
bill  at  length  passed  the  house  late  at  night,  the 
members  yawning  for  bed,  and  listening  with 
impatience  to  the  forcible  protest  of  Barre*,  who 
in  their  idea  had  the  poor  sense  to  magnify  a 
mole-hill  into  a  mountain.  _SoJlittle  do  we  un 
derstand  what  is  trifling  and  what  is  momen 
tous  of  what  passes  under  our  eyes  ! 

The  news  was  brought  to  the  colonies  by  a 
ship  which  reached  Boston  in  April,  and  the 
spirit  of  resistance  became  universal.  Patrick 
Henry's  resolutions,  passed  in  May,  were  gen- 


52  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

erally  adopted  as  the  sentiments  of  America. 
In  Boston  the  discontent  came  to  a  head  in 
1  August,  when  it  was  resolved  to  hang  in  effigy 
'  Andrew  Oliver,  who  had  been  appointed  dis 
tributor  of  stamps.  Decorous  though  the  com 
munity  ordinarily  was,  there  was  a  population 
in  the  streets  along  the  water  side  quite  capa 
ble  of  being  carried  to  the  extreme  of  ruth- 
lessness  and  folly.  Hutchinson  most  unjustly 
was  made  the  special  mark  of  their  rage.  Gor 
don  states  that  the  cause  in  part  was  certain 
unpopular  financial  enterprises,  projected  and 
carried  through  by  him  as  far  back  as  1748. 
Since  then,  however,  his  standing  with  the 
townspeople  had  been  as  high  as  possible,  and 
it  must  have  been  well  known  that  he  had  op 
posed  the  Stamp  Act  as  unjust  and  impolitic. 
So  far  he  had  given  but  few  signs  of  a  course 
obnoxious  to  the  people.  The  mob,  however, 
mad  with  rum,  attacked  with  such  fury  the  fine 
mansion  of  Hutchinson  at  the  North  End,  that 
he  and  his  family  escaped  with  difficulty.  The 
house  was  completely  gutted,  and  then  de 
stroyed.  Handsome  plate  and  furniture  were 
shattered  ;  worst  of  all,  manuscripts  and  other 
documents  of  great  importance,  collected  by 
Hutchinson  for  the  continuation  of  his  history, 
were  scattered  loose  in  the  streets,  and  for  the 
most  part  lost.  The  Admiralty  records  also 


IN   THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.         53 

were  burnt  and  other  destruction  committed. 
The  demonstration  in  its  earlier  phases  had  the 
approval  of  the  patriots.  A  town-meeting, 
however,  the  next  day,  condemned  the  excesses, 
and  pledged  the  aid  of  the  people  to  preserve 
order  henceforth. 

For  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  appointed  / 
for  the  end  of  September,  Samuel  Adams  again, 
in  behalf  of  the  town,  prepared  instructions  for 
the  "  Boston  seat."  John  Adams,  his  second 
cousin,  and  some  years  his  junior,  at  the  same 
time  performed  a  similar  service  for  the  town 
of  Braintree.  The  kinsmen  put  their  heads 
together  in  the  preparation  of  their  work,  a  co 
operation  that  was  to  be  many  times  repeated 
in  the  years  that  were  coming.  The  "  Boston 
Gazette "  spread  the  documents  everywhere 
throughout  the  other  towns,  by  whom  they 
were  again  and  again  imitated,  the  papers  be 
coming  the  generally  accepted  platform  of  the 
Province.  Points  especially  insisted  on  were 
the  right,  secured  by  charter  to  the  people  <>f 
Massachusetts'^of  possessing  all  the  privileges^ 
of  free-born  Britons,  representation  as  the-""ir  ^ 
dispensable  condition  of  taxation,  and  the  right 
of  trial  by  jury,  violated  in  the  Admiralty 
Courts,  whose  jurisdiction  of  late  had  bee  i 
much  extended.  The  same  town-meeting  yo 
which  the  instructions  were  reported  thanked 


64  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Conway  and  Barre*  for  bold  speeches  in  their 
behalf,  and  directed  that  their  portraits  should 
be  placed  in  Faneuil  Halh) 

Just  now  it  was  that  Oxenbridge  Thacher,  a 
member  of  the  Assembly,  an  ardent  patriot,  and 
the  associate  of  James  Otis  in  the  case  of  the 
writs  of  assistance,  died  at  the  age  of  forty-five. 
On  September  27  the  town  elected  Samuel 
Adams  his  successor.  The  record  in  the  hand 
of  William  Cooper  states  that  the  election  took 
place  on  the  second  ballot,  the  candidate  re 
ceiving  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  votes  out 
of  four  hundred  and  forty-eight.  He  appeared 
the  same  day  in  the  Assembly-room  in  the 
west  end  of  the  second  story  of  the  Old  State 
House,  and  was  immediately  qualified,  a  mo 
ment  only  before  the  body  was  prorogued  by 
the  governor.  It  was  not  until  October  that 
he  fairly  began  that  life  of  public  service  which 
was  to  last  almost  unbroken  until  his  death. 

Samuel  Adams  may  well  be  called  the  "  Man 
of  the  Town-meeting."  Though  the  sphere  of 
his  activity  was  henceforth  for  so  much  of  the 
time  the  Massachusetts  Assembly,  he  was  not 
through  that  taken  away  from  the  town-meet 
ing.  The  connection  between  the  Assembly 
and  the  town-meetings,  which  stood  behind  it 
and  sent  the  members  to  it,  was  a  very  close 
one.  Each  man  who  stood  in  the  house,  stood 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.         55 

(if  we  may  make  use  of  a  modern  distinction) 
as  a  deputy  and  not  as  a  representative  ; l  that 
is,  he  had  in  theory  no  independence,  was 
bound  as  to  all  his  acts  by  the  instructions  of 
the  folk-mote  that  sent  him  and  employed  him 
simply  as  a  matter  of  convenience.  In  the  first 
days  of  New  England  there  was  no  delegation 
of  authority  by  the  freemen.  As  the  inconven 
ience  had  become  plain  of  requiring  for  the 
transaction  of  all  business  the  voices  of  all  the 
freemen,  the  board  of  selectmen  had  at  length 
come  into  existence  for  each  town  ;  and  as  the 
towns  had  multiplied,  the  central  council  was 
at  length  devised  for  the  care  of  business  that 
affected  all.  The  town-meeting,  however,  in 
the  day  of  its  strength  jealously  kept  to  itself 
every  particle  of  power  which  it  could  reserve. 
It  was  simply  for  convenience  that  the  folk- 
motes  sent  each  a  man  to  the  Assembly-cham 
ber  in  King  Street.  The  freemen  could  not  go 
in  a  mass  ;  that  would  take  them  from  their 
bread-winning.  For  such  a  crowd,  too,  there 
would  be  no  room,  nor  would  it  be  possible  for 
all  to  hear  and  vote.  A  deputy  must  go  for 
each  town,  but  the  liberty  allowed  to  him  was 
narrow.  In  the  instructions  of  1764,  Samuel 
Adams,  at  the  beginning,  while  informing  the 
deputies  that  the  townsmen  "  have  delegated 

i  Dr.  Francis  Lieber,  Political  Ethics,  ii.  325. 


56  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

to  you  the  power  of  acting  in  their  publick 
Concerns  in  general  as  your  own  prudence  shall 
direct  you,"  takes  pains  immediately  to  qualify 
carefully  the  concession  thus :  "  Always  reserv 
ing  to  themselves  the  Constitutional  Right  of 
expressing  their  mind  and  giving  you  such  In 
struction  upon  particular  Matters  as  they  at 
any  Time  shall  Judge  proper."  1 

There  is  no  doubt  that  here  serious  harm 
could  come  to  pass ;  for  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  town-meeting  plan  can  never  answer 
for  large  affairs.  In  an  ideal  state,  while  the 
folk-mote  is  at  the  base,  there  must  be  found, 
through  representation,  the  smaller  governing 
and  legislating  body,  and  at  length  the  one  man, 
good  enough  and. wise  enough  to  be  trusted 
with  power  to  be  used  independently.  The 
idea  is  of  course  quite  erroneous  that  represen 
tative  government  is  nothing  but  a  substitute 
for  the  meeting  of  the  whole  people  in  the  fo 
rum,  made  necessary  by  increased  population. 
The  representative  must  be  held  to  a  strict  ac 
countability  indeed,  —  but  he  must  be  his  own 
man,  independent  in  judgment,  with  an  eye  to 
the  general  interests,  not  simply  those  of  his 
constituency ;  he  must  be  selected  not  because 
he  is  likely  to  be  a  subservient  instrument,  but 
for  his  good  judgment  and  leadership.  The 
1  Boston  Town  Records. 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.        57 

bond  should  be  close  between  him  and  those 
who  send  him.  Nevertheless  the  representa 
tive  should  be  the  superior  man,  selected  be 
cause  he  is  superior.  "  Instructions  "  are  out 
of  place  as  addressed  to  such  a  man  ;  his  judg 
ment  should  be  left  untrammeled,  and  in  cases 
where  representative  and  constituents  are  likely 
to  differ,  they  should  defer  to  him,  not  he  to 
them.1 

This  was  not  the  New  England  theory.  But 
whatever  may  have  been  the  New  England 
theory,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  in  practice,  the 
men  who  sat  in  the  Assembly,  if  they  really 
had  ability  and  force,  were  as  free  as  need  be. 
Such  men  as  Joseph  Hawley  at  Northampton, 
Elbridge  Gerry  at  Marblehead,  James  Warren 
at  Plymouth,  characters  about  to  appear  in  our 
story,  shaped  the  opinions  of  the  communities 
in  which  they  dwelt.  According  to  the  form, 
they  spoke  simply  the  views  of  the  town,  and 
regularly  after  election  listened  respectfully  to 
the  instructions  which  prescribed  to  them  a 
certain  course  of  conduct,  sometimes  with  great 
minuteness.  They  themselves,  however,  had 
led  the  way  to  the  opinions  that  thus  found 

1  See  discussions  of  the  subject  by  Dr.  Francis  Lieber,  Po- 
lit.  Ethics,  ii.  313,  etc. ;  John  Stuart  Mill,  Representative  Gov 
ernment,  p.  237 ;  Dr.  Rudolph  Gneist,  Geschichte  und  heutige 
Gestalt  der  Aemter  in  England,  112;  Burke,  Speech  to  the 
Electors  of  Bristol,  Novembers,  1774. 


58  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

voice  ;  for,  with  their  natural  power  quickened 
by  their  folk-mote  training,  they  usually  had 
tact  and  force  enough  to  sway  the  town  to  po 
sitions  near  their  own.  How  much  more  was 
this  mastery  held  in  the  case  of  such  a  leader 
as  Samuel  Adams  !  One  fancies  that  he  must 
have  sometimes  smiled  inwardly,  when,  after 
the  May  election,  Boston,  through  some  novice 
or  comparatively  obscure  personage,  charged 
him  and  his  colleagues,  in  peremptory  terms,  to 
do  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing  —  him  whose 
domination  in  the  patriot  ranks  became  quite 
absolute,  who  at  last  moulded  New  England 
opinion,  and  could  place  great  men  and  small 
almost  as  he  pleased  !  Or  was  he  so  far  self- 
deceived  that  he  did  not  know  his  own  strength, 
and  believed  that  many  a  plan  which  came 
from  his  own  powerful  brain  proceeded  from 
the  great  heart  of  the  people,  which  he  so  thor 
oughly  venerated  ? 

Practically,  with  all  the  independent  think 
ing,  the  able  men  shaped  opinion.  In  theory, 
however,  all  proceeded  from  the  town-meetings, 
and  those  who  stood  for  them  were  deputies, 
who  could  only  do  the  people's  will.  Using 
the  term  "  representative  "  in  its  limited  sense, 
it  may  be  said  that  a  body  like  the  Massachu 
setts  House  was  not  a  representative  assembly ; 
it  was  a  convention  of  the  folk-motes,  the  free- 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.         59 

men  of  each  town  being  concentrated  for  con 
venience  into  the  delegate  who  stood  in  the 
chamber.  Samuel  Adams,  therefore,  was  really 
scarcely  less  concerned  with  the  folk-mote 
when  he  worked  in  the  General  Court,  than 
when  he  worked  in  Faneuil  Hall.  In  the  lat 
ter  case  he  was  the  controlling  mind  of  one 
town  ;  in  the  former  case,  of  all  the  Massachu 
setts  towns,  who,  as  it  were,  sat  down  together 
in  the  hall  in  King  Street.  For  what  he  did 
in  the  latter  sphere  as  well  as  in  the  former 
sphere  he  deserves  to  be  called,  above  all  men 
who  have  ever  lived,  "  the  Man  of  the  Town- 
Meeting." 

No  building  is  so  associated  with  Samuel 
Adams  as  the  Old  State  House.  It  was  only 
now  and  then  that  a  town-meeting  met,  and 
seldom  that  it  became  so  large  as  to  overflow 
from  Faneuil  Hall  into  the  Old  South.  After 
Samuel  Adams  entered  the  Assembly  his  at 
tendance  was  daily  at  the  chamber  for  long  pe 
riods,  until  he  went  to  Congress  in  1774.  From 
the  close  of  the  Revolution  again  until  1797, 
his  public  service  was  almost  without  break. 
For  years  he  was  in  the  senate,  was  then  lieu 
tenant-governor,  then  governor,  the  functions 
of  all  which  positions  he  discharged  in  one  or 
another  of  the  rooms  of  the  Old  State  House. 
No  other  man,  probably,  has  darkened  its  door- 


60  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

way  so  often.  A  wise  reverence  has  restored 
the  building  nearly  to  its  condition  of  a  hun 
dred  years  ago.  On  the  eastern  gable  the  lion 
and  the  unicorn  rear  opposite  one  another,  as 
in  the  days  of  the  Province  ;  belfry,  roof,  and 
windows  are  as  of  yore  ;  the  strong  walls  built 
by  the  masons  of  1713,  though  looked  down 
upon  by  great  structures  on  all  sides,  stand  with 
a  kind  of  unshaken  independence  in  their  place 
and  compel  veneration.  Ascending  the  spiral 
staircase,  one  reaches  the  second  story,  where 
all  stands  as  it  was  in  the  former  time.  The 
Assembly  chamber  occupies  the  western  end,  a 
well-lighted  room,  ample  in  size  for  the  hun 
dred  and  twenty-five  deputies  whom  it  was 
intended  to  accommodate.  Its  decoration  is 
simple  ;  convenience,  not  beauty,  was  what  the 
Puritan  architect  aimed  at,  but  it  is  a  well- 
proportioned  and  stately  hall.  On  the  after 
noon  when  the  writer  first  visited  it,  among 
other  relics  there  stood  at  the  west  end  the  old 
"  Speaker's  desk,"  as  it  is  called,  which,  how 
ever,  seems  ill-adapted  to  the  use  of  a  Speaker. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  probably  it  was  the 
clerk's  desk,  for  which  it  seems  more  suitable. 
If  that  is  so,  here  sat  Samuel  Adams,  for  he 
was  clerk  through  all  those  disturbed  years. 
Here  rose  his  voice  as  he  directed  the  stormy 
debate ;  here  moved  his  hands  as  he  wrote  the 


IN  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  ASSEMBLY.         61 

papers  which  are  the  first  utterances  of  Amer 
ican  freedom.  In  the  chamber  corresponding, 
in  the  eastern  end  of  the  building,  the  gov 
ernor  met  with  the  Council :  it  was  also  the  ses 
sion-room  of  the  Superior  Court,  and  here  took 
place  the  scene  already  described,  when  James 
Otis  denounced  the  writs  of  assistance. 

Of  many  another  noteworthy  event  the  Old 
State  House  has  also  been  the  scene.  In  its 
halls  were  held  anciently  the  town-meetings. 
Hither  came  the  deputies  from  the  other  town- 
meetings,  in  the  time  when  the  New  England 
folk-motes  were  most  vigorous,  most  nobly  ac 
tive  in  effecting  great  results.  In  the  whole 
history  of  Anglo-Saxon  freedom,  since  the  times 
when  the  Teutons  clashed  their  shields  in  token 
of  approval  in  the  forests  of  the  Elbe  and 
Weser,  what  scenes  are  there  more  memorable 
than  these  old  walls  have  witnessed  !  The  Old 
State  House  is  the  theatre  where  our  actors  for 
the  most  part  must  move. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION  AND    THE 
MASSACHUSETTS   RESOLVES. 

IT  would  be  quite  inexplicable  how  a  new 
member  at  once  should  become  to  such  an  ex 
tent  the  leading  man  of  the  legislative  body, 
deferred  to  upon  every  occasion,  intrusted  with 
the  most  important  work,  and  infusing  a  quite 
new  tone  into  all  the  deliberations,  were  it  not 
for  a  fact  well  attested.  For  many  previous 
years,  while  the  management  of  the  malt-house 
suffered,  not  only  in  Bernard's  time  but  through 
the  years  of  Pownall  also,  and  far  back  into  the 
administration  of  Shirley,  the  quick  mind  and 
ready  pen  of  Samuel  Adams  had  been  always 
busy,  until  at  length  the  most  important  docu- 
lents,  promulgated  under  quite  other  names, 
Were  really  of  his  authorship.  One  man,  and 
only  one,  there  was  in  the  Assembly,  when 
Samuel  Adams  took  his  seat  among  them,  who 
was  treated  by  the  body  with  equal  deference, 
and  that  was  James  Otis,  temporarily  absent 
in  New  York  at  the  Stamp  Act  congress,  con- 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION,          63 

vened  there  at  the  suggestion  of  Massachusetts. 
In  mind,  character,  and  opinions,  the  two  lead 
ers  were  a  strong  contrast  to  each  other  in  many 
ways.  Otis's  power  was  so  magnetic  that  a- 
Boston  town-meeting,  upon  his  mere  entering, 
would  break  out  into  shouts  and  clapping,  and 
if  he  spoke  he  produced  effects  which  may.  be 
compared  with  the  sway  exercised  by  Chatham, 
whom  as  an  orator  he  much  resembled.  Long 
after  disease  had  made  him  utterly  untrust 
worthy,  his  spell  remained,  and  we  shall  here 
after  see  the  American  cause  brought  to  the 
brink  of  ruin,  because  the  people  would  follow 
him,  though  he  was  shattered.  Of  this  gift__ 
Samuel  Adams  possessed  little.  He  was  always 
in  speech  straightforward  and  sensible,  and 
upon  occasion  could  be  impressive,  but  his  en 
dowment  was  not  that  of  the  mouth  of  gold. 
While  Otis  was  fitful,  vacillating,  and  morbid, 
Samuel  Adams  was  persistent,  undeviating,  and 
sanity  itself.  While  Samuel  Adams  never 
abated  by  a  hair  his  opposition  to  the  British 
policy,  James  Otis,  who  at  the  outset  had  given 
the  watch-word  to  the  patriots,  later,  after  Par 
liament  had  passed  the  Stamp  Act,  said  :  — 

"  It  is  the  duty  of  all  humbly  and  silently  to  ac 
quiesce  in  all  the  decisions  of  the  supreme  legislature. 
Nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  in  a  thousand  will 
never  entertain  the  thought  but  of  submission  to  our 


64  8  AMU  EL  ADAMS. 

sovereign,  and  to  the  authority  of  Parliament  in  all 
possible  contingencies." 

^  A  point  where  the  opinions  of  the  two  men 
were  quite  at  variance  was  the  idea  of  a  repre 
sentation  of  the  colonies  in  Parliament.  While 
Samuel  Adams  from  the  first  rejected  it  as  im 
practicable  and  undesirable,  James  Otis  advo 
cated  it  with  all  his  force.  He  was  far  from 
being  alone  in  this  advocacy.  In  England 
Grenville  with  many  others  was  well  disposed 
toward  it,  and  it  would  probably  have  been 
considered  but  for  the  declaration  made  against 
it  by  the  colonies  themselves.  Adam  Smith, 
at  this  time  becoming  famous,  espoused  the 
view.  In  his  idea  representation  should  be 
proportioned  to  revenue,  and  if  this  were  con 
ceded  to  the  colonies,  he  foresaw  a  time  when 
in  the  growing  importance  of  America  the  seat 
of  power  would  be  transferred  thither.  A  few 
years  later  than  this,  the  British  government 
would  most  willingly  have  granted  parliamen 
tary  representation  to  the  colonies  as  a  solution 
of  the  difficulties.  Among  Americans,  Frank 
lin,  as  well  as  James  Otis,  earnestly  favored  the 
scheme  and  had  anticipations  similar  to  those 
of  Adam  Smith  ;  and  Hutchinson  early  had 
suggested  the  same  idea.  It  is  quite  noticeable 
that  in  our  own  day  Professor  J.  R.  Seeley,  in 
the  "  Expansion  of  England,"  treating  the 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.         65 

relations  between  Britain  and  her  dependen 
cies  at  the  present  time,  advocates  with  elo 
quence  an  abrogation  of  all  distinctions  between 
mother-country  and  dependency,  and  in  lan 
guage  quite  similar  to  that  of  James  Otis  urges 
the  compacting  and  consolidating  of  the  Brit 
ish  empire.  He  would  have  a  "great  world 
Venice,"  the  sea  flowing  everywhere,  indeed, 
through  its  separated  portions,  but  uniting  in 
stead  of  dividing. 

Such  unification  now  can  be  regarded  only  as 
advantageous,  whether  we  look  toward  the  gen 
eral  welfare,  or  to  the  internal  benefits  brought 
by  such  a  consolidation  to  the  powers  them 
selves.  Disintegrated  Italy  has  in  our  day 
come  together  into  a  great  and  powerful  king 
dom  under  the  headship  of  the  house  of  Sa 
voy.  Still  more  memorably  Germany  has  been 
redeemed  from  the  granulation  which  for  so 
many  ages  had  made  her  weak,  and  has  become 
a  magnificent  nation.  The  practical  annihila 
tion  of  space  and  time,  as  man  gains  dominion 
over  the  world  of  matter,  makes  it  possible 
that  states  should  be  immense  in  size  as  never 
before.  The  ends  of  the  earth  talk  together 
almost  without  shouting;  the  man  of  to-day 
moves  from  place  to  place  more  easily  and 
speedily  than  the  rider  of  the  enchanted  horse 
or  the  owner  of  the  magic  carpet  in  the  Arabian 
5 


66  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Nights.  Modern  political  unification  is  a  step 
toward  making  real  the  brotherhood  of  the  hu 
man  race,  the  coming  together  of  mankind  into 
one  harmonious  family,  to  which  the  benevolent 
look  forward.  Who  can  question,  moreover, 
that  in  the  case  of  the  individual  citizen,  whose 
political  atmosphere  is  that  of  a  mighty  state, 
there  is  a  largeness  of  view,  a  magnanimity 
of  spirit,  a  sense  of  dignity,  an  obliteration  of 
small  prejudices,  an  altogether  nobler  set  of 
ideas,  than  are  possible  to  the  citizen  of  a  con 
tracted  land  ?  Really,  in  the  highest  view,  any 
limitation  of  the  sympathies  which  prevents  a 
thorough,  generous  going  out  of  the  heart  to 
ward  the  whole  human  race  is  to  be  regretted. 
The  time  is  to  be  longed  and  labored  for  when 
patriotism  shall  become  merged  into  a  cosmo 
politan  humanity.1  The  man  who  can  call 
fifty  millions  of  men  his  fellow-citizens  is  nearer 
that  fine  breadth  of  love  than  he  whose  country 
is  a  narrow  patch.  If  parliamentary  represen 
tation  of  the  American  colonies  had  come  to 
pass,  the  British  empire  might  have  remained 
to  this  day  undivided,  and  would  not  the  wel 
fare  of  the  English-speaking  race,  of  the  world 
in  general,  have  been  well  served  thereby  ? 

Plausible  and  interesting  though  such  con 
siderations   are,   parliamentary   representation, 

*  Lessing,   Gesprdche  fur  Freimaiirer. 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.         67 

in  any  adequate  shape,  was  for  the  colonies 
one  hundred  years  ago  probably  quite  impracti 
cable  ;  and  when  Samuel  Adams  took  the  lead, 
as  he  at  once  did,  in  opposing  the  ideas  that 
were  so  powerfully  advocated,  he  showed  great 
practical  sense  and  rendered  a  most  important 
service.  Writing  to  Dennys  Deberdt,  then  co 
lonial  agent,  December  21,  1765,  and  speaking 
of  Parliament,  he  said  :  - 

"  We  are  far,  however,  from  desiring  any  represen 
tation  there,  because  we  think  the  Colonies  cannot  be 
fully  arid  equally  represented ;  and  if  not  equally, 
then  in  effect  not  at  all.  A  representative  should  be, 
and  continue  to  be,  well  acquainted  with  the  internal 
circumstances  of  the  people  whom  he  represents.  It 
is  often  necessary  that  the  circumstances  of  individual 
towns  should  be  brought  into  comparison  with  those 
of  the  whole ;  so  it  is  particularly  when  taxes  are  in 
consideration.  The  proportionate  part  of  each  to 
the  whole  can  be  found  only  by  an  exact  knowledge 
of  the  internal  circumstances  of  each.  Now  the  Col 
onies  are  at  so  great  a  distance  from  the  place  where 
the  Parliament  meets,  from  which  they  are  separated 
by  a  wide  ocean,  and  their  circumstances  are  so  often 
and  continually  varying,  as  is  the  case  in  countries 
not  fully  settled,  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for 
men,  though  ever  so  well  acquainted  with  them  at 
the  beginning  of  a  Parliament,  to  continue  to  have 
an  adequate  knowledge  of  them  during  the  existence 
of  that  Parliament.  .  .  . 


68  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  The  several  subordinate  powers  of  legislation  in 
America  seem  very  properly  to  have  been  constituted 
upon  their  [the  colonists]  being  considered  as  free 
subjects  of  England,  and  the  impossibility  of  their 
being  represented  in  Parliament,  for  which  reason 
these  powers  ought  to  be  held  sacred.  The  Ameri 
can  powers  of  government  are  rather  to  be  considered 
as  matters  of  justice  than  favor,  —  without  them, 
they  cannot  enjoy  that  freedom  which,  having  never 
forfeited,  no  power  on  earth  has  any  right  to  deprive 
them  of." 

Still  another  consideration  must  have  weighed 
with  Samuel  Adams  aside  from  those  men 
tioned  here.  He  well  knew  how  great  the 
departure  had  been  in  England  from  the  prim 
itive  institutions  and  standards  of  the  old  Teu 
tonic  freedom.  Liberty  seemed  to  be  sinking 
before  the  encroachments  of  arbitrary  power. 
Corruption  was  universal  and  scarcely  noticed ; 
the  great  masses  of  the  people,  practically  un 
represented  in  the  government,  apathetic  or 
despairing,  were  losing  the  characteristics  of 
freemen.  /Already  he  had  begun  to  cherish  the 
idea  of  independence  in  his  own  mind.  Amer 
ica  must  cut  loose,  not  only  because  she  was  de 
nied  her  rights,  but  because  she  was  bound  to 
a  ship  that  was  embarrassed  almost  to  sinking, 
with  few  sailors  in  the  crew  that  manned  her 
likely  to  have  strength  and  skill  enough  to 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.        69 

keep  her  afloat.  Precisely  at  this  time,  in  the 
troubles  connected  with  the  election  of  Wilkes, 
the  agitation  was  beginning  that  was  to  result, 
f\  after  sixty  years,  in  the  great  Reform  Bill  of 
1832.  The  stubborn  resistance  of  America,  of 
which  Samuel  Adams  was  to  such  an  extent 
the  heart  and  centre,  operated  most  beneficently 
for  England,  by  encouraging  there  a  similar 
temper.  Had  the  American  disputes  ended  in 
a  grant  of  parliamentary  representation,  or  any 
result  short  of  a  complete  sundering,  much 
of  the  healthful  pressure  which  afterwards 
brought  on  reform  in  England  must  have  been 
wanting.  That  America  insisted  on  independ 
ence  not  only  saved  her,  but  also  the  mother 
land.1  England's  other  great  dependencies, 
Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  have  pre 
ferred  to  remain  in  the  bond ;  yet  at  the  same 
time  they  are  free.  But  in  order  that  it  should 
be  possible  for  then!  to  remain  and  be  free,  it 
was  necessary  for  America  to  depart.  Only  in 
that  way  could  England  be  brought  to  purify 
herself,  and  learn  how  to  use  properly  the 
power  that  has  been  placed  in  her  hands. 

With  the  changed   temper  of   the   mother 
land,  and  the  changed  conditions  under  which 
our  lives  now  pass,  the  objections  to  a  connec 
tion  with  England,  so  important  one  hundred 
1  Buckle,  Hist .  of  Civilization,  i.  345. 


70  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

years  ago,  have  been  to  a  large  extent  set  aside. 
If  the  bond  were  now  existing,  is  there  really 
much  in  present  circumstances  to  justify  the 
severing  of  it  ?  Is  Freeman's  anticipation  to 
be  looked  upon  as  unreasonable  and  unattrac 
tive,  that  a  time  may  come  when,  through  some 
application  of  the  federal  principle,  the  great 
English-speaking  world,  occupying  so  rapidly 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  the  fairest  portions 
of  the  planet,  not  only  one  in  tongue,  but  sub 
stantially  one  in  institutions  and  essential  char 
acter,  may  come  together  into  a  vaster  United 
States,  the  "  great  world  Venice,"  the  pathways 
to  whose  scattered  parts  shall  be  the  subjected 
seas  ? l 

The  meeting  of  the  legislature  in  September, 
1765,  which  Bernard  prorogued  so  summarily, 
scarcely  giving  Samuel  Adams  time  to  take  his 
oath  as  a  member,  had  yet  been  long  enough  to 
afford  the  governor  opportunity  to  lay  before 
them  a  message,  in  which,  however  he  might 
before  have  shown  leanings  to  the  popular  side, 
he  now  declared  that  the  authority  of  Parlia 
ment  was  supreme,  and  counseled  submission. 
The  Assembly  had  time  to  arrange  for  an  an 
swer  to  the  address,  and  a  statement  of  their 

1  See  also  J.  R.  Seeley's  Expansion  of  England,  and  a  pam 
phlet  by  Rev.  F.  Barham  Zincke,  noticed  in  the  Nation,  April 
5,  1883. 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.         71 


position.  Samuel  Adams  was  put  at  once  in 
the  forefront,  the  task  being  assigned  to  him/ 
of  drafting  the  papers.  When  in  October  the 
legislature  again  met,  two  documents  were  soon 
reported,  both  the  work  of  Mr.  Adams,  a  re 
sponse  to  Bernard,  and  a  series  of  resolves  des 
tined  to  great  fame  as  the  "  Massachusetts  Re 
solves." 

In  the  response,  while  the  courtesy  of  the 
terms  is  consummate,  the  clearest  assertions 
respecting  the  limitation  of  the  powers  of  Par-^ 
liameut  are  made.  Strong  loyalty  to  the  king 
is  expressed,  while  the  Assembly  at  the  same^x 
time  refuses  to  assist  in  the  execution  of  the 
Stamp  Act.  The  resolves  contain  the  same 
ideas  substantially,  but  in  a  different  form  of 
expression,  since  they  were  meant  to  be  a  pro 
mulgation  to  the  world  of  the  sentiments  of 
Massachusetts. 

Matters  in  Massachusetts  were  fast  passing 
from  the  nebulous  stage  into  clear  definition. 
The  supporters  of  the  ministry  began  to  with 
draw  from  positions  inconsistent  with  the  claims 
now  made  by  the  government ;  and  the  As 
sembly,  by  adopting  these  resolves,  for  the 
first  time  committed  itself  formally  to  opposi 
tion.  Had  Otis  been  present  there  would  no 
doubt  have  been  less  decision.  In  May  of 
this  year  he  had  made  the  declaration,  already 


72  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

quoted,  respecting  the  necessity  of  submission 
to  Parliament ;  his  mind,  too,  was  full  of  the 
thought  of  a  parliamentary  representation  for 
the  colonies.  Otis,  however,  was  absent  at  the 
Congress  in  New  York,  and  the  energetic  new 
member  swayed  the  House  according  to  his 
will,  with  no  one  to  cross  his  plans. 

The  New  York  Congress,  at  which  delegates 
had  appeared  from  nine  of  the  colonies,  had 
been  far  from  harmonious  in  their  discussions. 
Timothy  Ruggles,  the  president,  a  delegate 
from  Massachusetts,  a  brave  old  soldier,  re 
fused  to  sign  the  documents  submitted,  and 
cast  his  lot  with  the  Tories  henceforth.  Ogden, 
of  New  Jersey,  acted  with  him.  Otis  bore  a 
prominent  part,  but  was  nevertheless  forced  to 
abandon  his  positions  by  signing  the  papers, 
which  were  inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  sub 
mission  to  Parliament,  and  declaredsAmerican 
representation  to  be  impracticable.  Xj&jfche 
midst  of  the  debates  a  ship  loaded  with  stamps 
arrived,  at  which  the  town  was  thrown  into  the 
greatest  turmoil.  During  the  excitement  the 
delegates,  feeling  the  necessity  of  union,  made 
mutual  concessions,  and  finally,  with  the  excep 
tions  above  mentioned,  signed  petitions  contain 
ing  substantially  the  ideas  of  the  Massachusetts 
Resolves,  by  which  the  colonies  became  "  a  bun 
dle  of  sticks,  which  could  neither  be  bent  nor 
broken." 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.         73 

The  response  to  Bernard  and  the  Massachu 
setts  Resolves,  which  presently  after  were 
mocked  at  in  England  as  "the  ravings  of  a 
parcel  of  wild  enthusiasts,"  were  greeted  in . 
America  with  great  approval.  The  1st  of  No 
vember  was  the  day  appointed  for  the  Stamp 
Act  to  go  into  operation.  In  Boston  the  morn 
ing  was  ushered  in  by  the  tolling  of  bells  and 
the  firing  of  minute-guns.  The  deep  popular 
discontent  found  sullen  expression,  though  the 
excesses  of  the  August  riots  were  avoided. 
The  stamps  had  arrived  and  been  stored  at 
Castle  William  in  the  harbor,  an  additional 
force  being  appointed  to  guard  them.  Bernard, 
much  embarrassed  by  the  stubborn  opposition, 
sought  advice  from  the  Council  and  Assembly 
as  to  what  course  to  take,  but  with  no  good  re 
sult.  The  Assembly,  soon  after  convening,  pro 
ceeded  to  consider  the  possibility  of  transacting 
business  without  the  use  of  stamps,  a  matter 
which  had  been  touched  upon  in  the  preceding 
session,  and  for  meddling  with  which  they  had 
been  prorogued.  As  was  the  usage,  committees 
were  appointed  in  which  the  business  was  to  be 
shaped  before  coming  under  the  consideration 
of  the  whole  body,  of  all  which  Mr.  Adams  was 
a  leading  member  and  sometimes  chairman. 
By  his  hand,  too,  at  this  time  the  House  re 
buked  the  governor  and  Council  for  drawing 


74  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

without  its  consent,  from  the  provincial  treas 
ury,  money  to  pay  the  additional  troops  at  the 
Castle,  declaring  that  to  make  expenditures  un 
authorized  by  the  people's  representatives  was 
an  infringement  upon  their  rights. 

Otis  and  his  colleagues  now  returning  from 
New  York  with  a  report  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  Stamp  Act  Congress,  the  Assembly  at  once 
indorsed  its  action.  In  letters  of  Mr.  Adams 
at  this  time  sent  to  England,  in  which  he  writes 
for  others  as  well  as  himself,  a  plan  is  men 
tioned  at  which  he  had  before  hinted,  and  which 
was  now,  under  the  name  of  the  "  nonimpor 
tation  "  scheme,  about  to  become  one  of  the 
most  effective  means  of  resistance  which  the 
colonists  could  employ.  Spreading  from  Mas 
sachusetts,  where  Adams  had  suggested  the 
idea,  to  the  thirteen  colonies  in  general,  it 
struck  terror  into  the  hearts  of  British  traders, 
who  saw  ruin  for  themselves  in  the  cutting  off 
of  the  American  demand  for  their  products. 

A  general  gloom  now  settled  over  Massachu 
setts.  The  courts  were  closed ;  business,  to  a 
large  extent,  came  to  a  stand.  No  legal  or 
commercial  papers  were  valid  without  the 
stamp,  and  the  stamps  lay  untouched  at  the 
Castle,  the  Province  refusing  to  use  them.  The 
law  was  in  many  places  in  the  colonies  set  at 
defiance  and  evaded.  Men  had  recourse  to  ar- 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.         75 

bitration  in  the  settlement  of  disputes.  Ships 
entered  and  cleared,  and  other  business  was 
done,  in  contempt  of  the  statute.  Newspapers 
were  published  with  a  death's  head  in  the  place 
where  the  law  required  a  stamp.  The  strait 
was  severe,  and  on  the  18th  of  December  a 
Boston  town-meeting  took  place  to  consider 
measures  looking  toward  the  opening  of  the 
courts.  A  committee  was  appointed,  of  which 
Samuel  Adams  was  chairman,  to  petition  the 
governor  and  Council,  and  it  was  agreed  to  em 
ploy  Jeremiah  Gridley,  a  famous  lawyer  of  the 
day,  James  Otis,  and  John  Adams,  to  support 
the  memorial. 

Samuel  Adams  had  a  quick  eye  for  power 
and  availability  of  every  kind,  and  now  that  he 
was  in  the  foreground  he  swept  the  field  every 
where  for  useful  allies.  Of  the  brilliant  young 
men  who  were  about  to  come  forward  in  Mas 
sachusetts  as  the  contest  became  fierce,  there  is 
scarcely  one  whom  Samuel  Adams  did  not,  so 
to  speak,  discover,  or  to  whom,  at  any  rate,  he 
did  not  stand  sponsor  as  the  new-comer  took 
his  place  among  the  strivers.  He  it  was  who 
suggested  to  the  town  the  employment  of  his 
young  Braintree  kinsman,  John  Adams,  who 
now  for  the  first  time  steps  into  prominence  in 
public  affairs.  The  diary  of  John  Adams  gives 
an  account  of  his  waiting  until  candle-light  dur- 


76  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ing  the  winter  afternoon  in  the  representatives' 
chamber,  in  company  with  the  town's  commit 
tee  and  many  others,  until  a  message  came 
across  the  hall  from  Bernard  and  the  Council, 
in  the  east  room,  to  Samuel  Adams,  directing 
that  the  memorial  of  the  town  should  be  pre 
sented,  and  that  the  counsel  in  support  should 
attend,  but  no  others.  The  memorial  had  no 
effect,  and  the  strait  remained  at  present  unre 
lieved. 

John  Adams  has  interesting  things  to  say  in 
his  diary  about  the  clubs,  at  which  he  meets 
the  famous  characters  of  the  day. 

"  This  day  learned  that  the  Caucus  Club  meets  at 
certain  times  in  the  garret  of  Tom  Dawes,  the  adju 
tant  of  the  Boston  regiment.  He  has  a  large  house, 
and  he  has  a  movable  partition  in  his  garret,  which 
he  takes  down,  and  the  whole  club  meets  in  one  room. 
There  they  smoke  tobacco  till  you  cannot  see  from 
one  end  of  the  garret  to  the  other.  There  they  drink 
flip,  I  suppose,  and  there  they  choose  a  moderator 
who  puts  questions  to  the  vote  regularly ;  and  select 
men,  assessors,  collectors,  wardens,  fire-wards,  and 
representatives  are  regularly  chosen  before  they  are 
chosen  in  the  town.  Uncle  Fairfield,  Story,  Rud 
dock,  Adams,  Cooper,  and  a  rudis  indigestaque  moles 
are  members.  They  send  committees  to  wait  on  the 
Merchant's  Club,  and  to  propose  and  join  in  the  choice 
of  men  and  measures." 

It  was  the  successor  of  this  club  to  which 


PARLIAMENTARY  REPRESENTATION.         77 

Samuel  Adams  now  introduced  John  Adams. 
The  new  organization  was  larger,  and  the  scope 
of  its  action,  too,  instead  of  being  limited  to 
town  affairs,  now  included  a  far  wider  range 
in  the  struggle  that  was  beginning. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND. 

CAREFUL  observers  are  remarking  that  the 
temper  of  the  legislature,  as  shown  by  the  re 
sponse  to  Bernard  and  the  Massachusetts  Re 
solves,  is  something  quite  different  from  what  it 
has  been.  This  difference  is  to  be  attributed 
to  the  influence  of  Samuel  Adams,  who,  al 
though  for  several  years  well  known,  now  for 
the  first  time  finds  opportunity  to  make  him 
self  properly  felt.  Meantime  events  are  taking 
place  across  the  water  which  require  our  no 
tice. 

Inasmuch  as  the  American  Colonies  had  prof 
ited  especially  from  the  successes  of  the  war,  it 
had  been  felt,  justly  enough,  that  they  should 
bear  a  portion  of  the  burden.  It  might  have 
been  possible  to  secure  from  them  a  good  sub 
sidy,  but  the  plan  devised  for  obtaining  it  was 
unwise.  The  principle  was  universally  admit 
ted  that  Parliament  had  power  to  levy  "  exter 
nal  "  taxes,  those  intended  for  the  regulation 
of  commerce.  With  the  Stamp  Act,  in  1764, 


THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND.    79 

Grenville  had  taken  a  step  farther.  This  was 
an  "  internal "  tax,  one  levied  directly  for  the 
purpose  of  raising  a  revenue,  not  for  the  regu 
lation  of  commerce.  The  unconscious  Gren 
ville  explained  his  scheme  in  an  open,  honest 
way.  "I  am  not,  however,"  said  he  to  the  colo 
nial  agents  in  London,  "  set  upon  this  tax.  If 
the  Americans  dislike  it  and  prefer  any  other 
method,  I  shall  be  content.  Write,  therefore, 
to  your  several  colonies,  and  if  they  choose  any 
other  mode,  I  shall  be  satisfied,  provided  the 
money  be  but  raised."  But  Britain,  pushing 
thus  more  earnestly  than  heretofore,  found  her 
self,  much  to  her  surprise,  confronted  by  a  stout 
and  well-appointed  combatant,  not  to  be  brow 
beaten  or  easily  set  aside. 

No  one  was  more  astonished  than  Grenville 
that  precisely  now  an  opposition  so  decided 
should  be  called  out.  He  had  meant  to  soften 
his  measures  by  certain  palliatives.  For  the 
southern  colonies,  the  raising  of  rice  was  fa 
vored  ;  the  timber  trade  and  hemp  and  flax  in 
the  north  received  substantial  encouragement ; 
most  important  of  all  measures,  all  restriction 
was  taken  from  the  American  whale  fishery, 
even  though  it  was  quite  certain  under  such 
conditions  to  ruin  that  of  the  British  isles. 
Grenville  felt  that  he  had  proceeded  prudently. 
He  had  asked  advice  of  many  Americans,  who 


80  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

had  made  no  objection  to,  and  in  some  cases 
had  approved,  the  Stamp  Act.  Men  of  the  best 
opportunities  for  knowing  the  temper  of  the 
colonies,  like  Shirley,  fifteen  years  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  and  for  a  time  commander-in- 
chief  of  all  the  military  forces  in  America,  had 
decidedly  favored  it.  Nothing  better  than  the 
Stamp  Act  had  been  suggested,  though  Gren- 
ville  had  invited  suggestions  as  to  substitutes. 
America,  however,  was  in  a  ferment,  and  Eng 
land,  too,  for  one  reason  or  another,  was  in  a 
temper  scarcely  less  threatening.  Something 
must  be  done  at  once.  But  the  responsibility 
was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  Grenville;  a 
new  ministry  had  come  into  power,  and  he  was 
once  more  a  simple  member'  of  Parliament. 

The  new  premier  was  the  Marquis  of  Rock- 
ingham,  a  young  statesman  of  liberal  principles 
and  excellent  sense,  though  with  a  strange  in 
capacity  for  expressing  himself,  which  made 
him  a  cipher  in  debate.  The  secretary  of  state, 
in  whose  department  especially  came  the  man 
agement  of  the  colonies,  was  General  Conway, 
like  Barre*  a  brave  officer  and  admirable  man, 
and  well-disposed  toward  America.  On  the 
14th  of  January  began  that  debate,  so  memo 
rable  both  on  account  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
issues  involved  and  the  ability  of  the  dispu 
tants  who  took  part.  A  few  Americans,  Frank- 


THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND.         81 

lin  and  other  colonial  agents  among  them,  list 
ened  breathlessly  in  the  gallery,  and  transmitted 
to  their  country  a  broken,  imperfect  report  of 
all  the  superb  forensic  thunder.  Whoever  stud 
ies  candidly  the  accounts  cannot  avoid  receiving 
a  deep  impression  as  to  the  power  and  substan 
tial  good  purpose  of  the  great  speakers,  and  as  to 
the  grave  embarrassments  that  clogged  them  in 
striving  to  point  out  a  practicable  course.  The 
agitation  out  of  which  reform  was  to  come  was 
already  in  the  air.  While  none  of  the  actors 
in  the  scene  appreciated  the  depth  of  the  gulf 
into  which  England  was  sinking,  all  evidently 
felt  the  pressure  of  evil.  Mansfield  appears 
ready  at  one  point  to  admit  abuse,  but  depre 
cates  interference  with  the  constitution,  while 
Pitt  denounces  the  "  rotten  boroughs,"  and  de 
clares  that  they  must  be  lopped  off. 

Edmund  Burke  made  upon  this  occasion  his 
maiden  speech,  but  no  one  thought  it  worth 
while,  in  those  days  before  systematic  report 
ing  had  begun,  to  record  the  words  of  the  un 
known  young  man.  Pitt,  who  followed  him, 
hushed  all  into  attention  as  he  rose  in  his  fee 
bleness,  his  eloquence  becoming  more  touching 
from  the  strange  disease  by  which  he  was  af 
flicted,  and  which  he  was  accused  of  using  pur 
posely  to  increase  the  effect  of  his  words  ;  he 
first  praised  the  effort  of  the  new  member,  and 


82  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

then  proceeded  in  that  address  so  worthy  of  his 
fame.  Pitt's  advice  was  that  the  Stamp  Act 
should  be  repealed  absolutely  and  immediately, 
but  at  the  same  time  that  the  sovereignty  of 
England  over  the  colonies  should  be  asserted 
in  the  strongest  possible  terms,  and  be  made 
to  extend  to  every  point  of  legislation,  except 
that  of  taking  their  money  without  consent. 

"There  is  an  idea  in  some  that  the  colonies  are 
virtually  represented  in  this  house.  They  never  have 
been  represented  at  all  in  Parliament.  I  would  fain 
know  by  whom  an  American  is  represented  here.  Is 
he  represented  by  any  knight  of  the  shire  in  any 
county  of  this  kingdom  ?  Would  to  God  that  re 
spectable  representation  were  augmented  by  a  greater 
number !  Or  will  you  tell  me  that  he  is  represented 
by  any  representative  of  a  borough,  a  borough  which 
perhaps  no  man  ever  saw  ?  This  is  what  is  called 
the  rotten  part  of  the  constitution  ;  it  cannot  endure 
the  century.  If  it  does  not  drop  it  must  be  ampu 
tated.  The  idea  of  a  virtual  representation  of  Amer 
ica  in  this  house  is  the  most  contemptible  that  ever 
entered  into  the  head  of  a  man.  It  does  not  deserve 
a  serious  refutation." 

Later  in  the  winter,  when  the  debate  was  re 
newed  in  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord  Camden, 
chief  j  ustice  of  the  Common  Pleas,  supported  the 
views  of  Pitt  in  a  strain  which  the  latter  called 
divine.  He  tried  to  establish  by  a  learned  cita- 


THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND.    83 

tion  of  precedents  that  the  parts  and  estates  of 
the  realm  had  not  been  taxed  until  represented ; 
but  as  if  he  felt  that  abuses  had  accumulated, 
he  declared  that,  if  the  right  of  the  Americans 
to  tax  themselves  could  not  be  established  in 
this  way,  it  would  be  well  to  give  it  to  them 
from  principles  of  natural  justice.  Among 
those  who  replied,  the  most  noteworthy  was 
Lord  Mansfield,  chief  justice  of  England,  who 
declared,  in  opposition  to  Camden,  that :  — 

"  The  doctrine  of  representation  seemed  ill-founded. 
There  are  12,000,000  people  in  England  and  Ireland 
who  are  not  represented ;  the  notion  now  taken  up, 
that  every  subject  must  be  represented  by  deputy,  is 
purely  ideal.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  my  lord,  that 
the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies  are  as  much  repre 
sented  in  Parliament  as  the  greatest  part  of  the  peo 
ple  of  England  are  represented,  among  9,000,000 
of  whom  there  are  8,000,000  who  have  no  votes  in 
electing  members  of  Parliament.  Every  objection, 
therefore,  to  the  dependency  of  the  colonies  upon 
Parliament,  which  arises  to  it  upon  the  ground  of 
representation,  goes  to  the  whole  present  constitution 
of  Great  Britain,  and  I  suppose  it  is  not  meant  to 
new-model  that  too  !  A  member  of  Parliament  chosen 
by  any  borough  represents  not  only  the  constituents 
and  inhabitants  of  that  particular  place,  but  he  repre 
sents  the  inhabitants  of  every  other  borough  in  Great 
Britain.  He  represents  the  city  of  London  and  all 
other  the  Commons  of  this  land  and  the  inhabitants 


84  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

of  all  the  colonies  and  dominions  of  Great  Britain, 
and  is  in  duty  and  conscience  bound  to  take  care  of 
their  interests." 

When,  after  the  speech  of  Mansfield,  the 
subject  came  to  a  vote  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
the  matter  stood  in  his  favor  by  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  to  five.  In  the  Commons  the 
majority  on  the  same  side  was  as  overwhelm 
ing- 
Looking  back  upon  this  momentous  debate 

after  a  century  and  a  quarter  has  elapsed,  what 
are  we  to  say  as  to  the  merits  of  it  ?  England 
has  completely  changed  since  then  her  colonial 
policy,  but  no  sober  second  thought  has  induced 
her  historians  to  believe  that  the  position  of 
the  government  was  plainly  a  wrong  one.  Pitt 
and  Camden  turned  the  scale  for  us  in  the 
Stamp  Act  matter  :  their  declarations  put  back 
bone  into  the  colonial  resistance,  and  disheart 
ened  the  ministry  in  England ;  but  Pitt's  opin 
ions  were  declared  at  the  time  to  be  peculiar  to 
himself  and  Lord  Camden,  and  have  ever  since, 
in  England,  been  treated  as  untenable.1  Mans 
field's  theory  of  "  virtual  representation," — •  that 
a  representative  represents  the  whole  realm, 
not  merely  his  own  constituency,  "  all  other 
the  Commons  of  this  land,  and  the  inhabitants 
of  all  the  colonies  and  dominions  of  Great 

1  Massey,  Hist,  of  Reign  of  George  III.  i.  262. 


THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND.          85 

Britain,  and  is  in  duty  and  conscience  bound 
to  take  care  of  their  interests," —  is  declared  by 
another  writer  to  be  grandly  true,  though,  to 
be  sure,  somewhat  overstrained  as  regards  the 
colonies.  Burke,  a  few  years  afterwards,  ad 
dressing  the  electors  of  Bristol,  developed  the 
doctrine  elaborately.  Mansfield  was  right  in 
urging  that  the  constitution  knows  no  limitation 
of  the  power  of  Parliament,  and  no  distinction 
between  the  power  of  taxation  and  other  kinds 
of  legislation.  The  abstract  right,  continues 
our  historian,  was  unquestionably  on  the  side 
of  the  minister  and  Parliament,  who  had  im 
posed  the  tax,  and  that  right  is  still  acted 
upon.  In  1868,  in  the  trial  of  Governor  Eyre 
of  Jamaica,  the  English  Judge  Blackburn  de 
cided,  "  although  the  general  rule  is  that  the 
legislative  assembly  has  the  sole  right  of  im 
posing  taxes  in  the  colony,  yet  when  the  im 
perial  legislature  chooses  to  impose  taxes,  ac 
cording  to  the  rule  of  English  law  they  have  a 
right  to  do  it." l  Lecky  says :  — 

"  It  was  a  first  principle  of  the  constitution,  that  a 
member  of  Parliament  was  the  representative  not 
merely  of  his  own  constituency,  but  also  of  the  whole 
empire.  Men  connected  with,  or  at  least  specially  in 
terested  in  the  colonies,  always  found  their  way  into 
Parliament ;  and  the  very  fact  that  the  colonial  ar- 
1  Yoiige,  Const,  Hist,  of  England,  p.  66. 


86  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

guments  were  maintained  with  transcendent  power 
within  its  walls  was  sufficient  to  show  that  the  colo 
nies  were  virtually  represented." 

Lecky,  however,  even  while  thus  arguing, 
admits  that  the  Stamp  Act  did  unquestiona 
bly  infringe  upon  a  great  principle  ;  and  he  ac 
knowledges  that  the  doctrine,  that  taxation  and 
representation  are  inseparably  connected,  lies 
at  the  very  root  of  the  English  conception  of  po 
litical  liberty.  It  was  only  by  straining  matters 
that  the  colonies  could  be  said  to  be  virtually 
represented,  and  in  resisting  the  Stamp  Act  the 
principle  involved  was  the  same  as  that  which 
led  Hampden  to  refuse  to  pay  the  ship  money.1 

It  is  only  fair  for  the  present  generation  of 
Americans  to  weigh  arguments  like  those  of 
Mansfield,  and  to  understand  how  involved  the 
case  was'.  The  statesmen  of  the  time  of  George 
III.  were  neither  simpletons  nor  utterly  ruth 
less  oppressors.  They  were  men  of  fair  pur 
poses  and  sometimes  of  great  abilities,  not  be 
fore  their  age  in  knowledge  of  national  economy 
and  political  science ;  still,  however,  sincerely 
loving  English  freedom,  and,  with  such  light  as 
they  had,  striving  to  rule  in  a  proper  manner 
the  great  realm  which  was  given  them  to  be 
guided.  In  ways  which  the  wisest  of  them  did 
Dot  fully  appreciate,  the  constitution  had  under- 

1  Lecky,  iii.  353,  etc. 


THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE  ENGLAND.          87 

gone  deterioration  through  the  carelessness  of 
the  people  and  the  arbitrary  course  of  many  of 
the  rulers,  until  the  primeval  Anglo-Saxon 
freedom  was  scarcely  recognizable,  and  liberty 
was  in  great  jeopardy.  Following  usages  and 
precedents,  learned  lawyers  could  easily  find 
justification  for  an  arbitrary  course  on  the  part 
of  the  ministers,  and  it  is  a  mark  of  greatness 
in  Camden,  that,  learned  lawyer  though  he  was, 
he  felt  disposed  to  rest  the  cause  of  the  colonies 
on  the  basis  of  "  natural  justice,"  rather  than 
upon  the  technicalities  with  which  it  was  his 
province  to  deal.  In  the  shock  of  the  Stamp 
Act  and  Wilkes  agitations  England  came  to  her 
self,  and  by  going  back  to  the  primeval  princi 
ples  started  on  a  course  of  reform  by  no  means 
yet  complete.  At  this  very  time  Richard 
Bland  of  Virginia,  anticipating  by  a  century 
the  spirit  and  methods  of  the  constitutional 
writers  of  whom  E.  A.  Freeman  is  the  best- 
known  example,  uttered  sentences  which  might 
well  have  been  taken  as  their  motto  by  the 
"Friends  of  the  People,"  the  "Society  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights,"  and  the  other  organizations  in 
England  which  were  just  beginning  to  be  active 
for  the  salvation  of  their  country.  He  derived 
the  English  constitution  from  Anglo  -  Saxon 
principles  of  the  most  perfect  equality,  which 
invested  every  freeman  with  a  right  to  vote. 


i 


88  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  If  nine  tenths  of  the  people  of  Britain  are  de 
prived  of  the  high  privilege  of  being  electors,  it 
would  be  a  work  worthy  of  the  best  patriotic  spirits 
of  the  nation  to  restore  the  constitution  to  its  pris 
tine  perfection." 

Much  as  Pitt  and  Camden  were  admired,  and 
powerful  as  was  their  brave  denunciation  of 
the  Stamp  Act  and  their  demand  for  its  repeal, 
their  famous  position  that  a  distinction  must 
be  made  between  taxation  and  legislation,  and 
that  while  Parliament  could  not  tax  it  could 
legislate,  seemed  no  more  tenable  to  Ameri 
cans  than  it  did  to  Englishmen.  As  we  shall 
see,  the  colonial  leaders  soon  pass  on  from  de 
manding  representation  as  a  condition  of  taxa 
tion,  to  demanding  representation  as  a  condi 
tion  of  legislation  of  every  kind;  they  deny 
utterly  the  power  of  Parliament  to  interfere  in 
any  of  their  affairs  ;  they  owe  allegiance  to  the 
king,  but  of  Parliament  they  are  completely  in 
dependent.  So  Franklin  had  already  declared. 
This  position  was  shocking  to  Pitt,  and  he  would 
have  been  as  willing  to  suppress  its  upholders 
as  was  Lord  North  himself. 

It  is  making  no  arrogant  claim  to  say  that 
in  all  this  preliminary  controversy  the  Ameri 
can  leaders  show  a  much  better  appreciation  of 
th§  principles  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty,  and  a 
management  much  more  statesman-like,  than 


THE  STAMP  ACT  BEFORE    ENGj 

even  the  best  rnen  across  the  water, 
be  expected.  As  far  as  New  England 
cerned,  there  is  no  denying  the  oft  quoted  as 
sertion  of  Stoughton  that  God  sifted  a  whole 
nation  to  procure  the  seed  out  of  which  the 
people  was  to  be  developed.  The  colonists 
were  picked  men  and  women,  and  the  circum 
stances  under  which  they  were  placed  on  their 
arrival  on  these  shores  forced  upon  them  a  re 
vival  of  institutions  which  in  England  had  long 
been  overlaid.  The  folk-mote  had  reappeared 
in  all  its  old  vigor,  and  wrought  in  the  society 
its  natural  beneficent  effect.  Together  with 
intelligence  and  self-reliance  in  every  direction, 
it  had  especially  trained  in  the  people  the  polit 
ical  sense.  In  utter  blindness  the  Englishman 
of  our  revolutionary  period  looked  down  upon 
the  colonist  as  wanting  in  reason  and  courage. 
Ileally  the  colonist  was  a  superior  being,  both 
as  compared  with  the  ordinary  British  citizen 
and  with  the  noble.  Originally  of  the  best 
English  strain,  a  century  and  a  half  of  training 
under  the  institution  best  adapted  of  all  human 
institutions  to  quicken  manhood  had  had  its 
effect.  What  influences  had  surrounded  lord 
or  commoner  across  the  water  to  develop  in 
them  a  capacity  to  cope  with  the  child  of  the 
Puritan,  schooled  thoroughly  in  the  town-meet 
ing? 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TRUE   SENTIMENTS   OF   AMERICA. 

FROM  the  imposing  British  Parliament,  sit 
ting  in  the  shadow  of  Westminster  Abbey, 
with  Westminster  Hall  close  at  hand,  and  just 
beyond  these  the  City,  fast  becoming  the  heart 
of  the  civilized  world,  to  come  to  the  little  pro 
vincial  town  and  the  Old  State  House  with  its 
modest  company  of  town-meeting  deputies  is  a 
change  marked  indeed.  But  the  deputies  are 
as  worthy  of  regard  as  their  high  placed  con- 
temners  at  St.  Stephen's. 

/  Though  Otis  was  still  the  popular  idol,  Sam- 
piel  Adams  became  every  day  more  and  more 
$he  power  behind  all,  preparing  the  documents, 
laying  trains  for  effects  far  in  the  future,  watch 
ful  as  regards  the  slightest  encroachments.  In 
Faneuil  Hall  as  plain  townsman,  and  also  in 
lis  place  as  deputy,  he  is  found  busy  with 
plans  for  helping  on  the  work  of  the  courts 
without  yielding  to  the  requirements  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  while  the  crown  officials  on  their 
\side  uphold  the  authority  of  Parliament.  On 


THE   TRUE  SENTIMENTS   OF  AMERICA.       91 

the  16th  of  May,  1766,  however,  the  Harrison, 
a  brigantine,  six  weeks  out  from  England,  cast 
anchor  in  the  inner  harbor  with  news  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  powerful  voices 
raised  in  opposition  to  it  in  Parliament,  the 
pressure  from  the  trading  and  manufacturing 
centres,  the  clamor  of  the  people,  had  brought 
about  the  change.  The  measure,  however,  was 
accompanied  by  the  Declaratory  Act,  in  which 
the  ground  of  Pitt  was  by  no  means  taken,  but 
the  assertion  was  made  that  Parliament  was  su 
preme  over  the  colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 
For  expediency's  sake  the  obnoxious  tax  was 
repealed,  but  the  right  to  tax  and  to  legislate  in 
every  other  way  for  the  colonies  was  plainly 
stated.  The  people  in  general,  nevertheless,  no 
ticed  only  the  repeal,  and  were  transported  with 
joy.  Salutes  were  fired  from  the  different  bat 
teries,  the  shipping  was  dressed  with  flags,  the 
streets  were  full  of  music.  At  night  Liberty 
Tree  was  hung  full  of  lanterns,  transparencies 
were  shown,  fire-works  were  displayed  on  the 
Common,  and  high  and  low  feasted  and  reveled. 
John  Hancock,  a  rich  young  merchant,  twenty- 
nine  years  old,  lately  come  into  a  great  fortune 
through  the  death  of  his  uncle,  Thomas  Han 
cock,  particularly  signalized  himself  by  his  lib 
erality.  Before  his  handsome  mansion  opposite 
the  Common,  a  pipe  of  Madeira  wine  was  dis- 


92  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

tributed  to  the  people.  His  house  and  those  of 
other  grandees  near  were  full  of  the  finer  world, 
while  the  multitude  were  out  under  the  trees, 
just  leafing  out  for  the  spring.  One  is  glad  to 
record  that  for  once  poor  Bernard  cordially  sym 
pathized  with  the  popular  feeling.  He  and  his 
Council  had  a  congratulatory  meeting  in  the  af 
ternoon,  and  in  the  evening  walked  graciously 
about  among  the  people,  a  brief  harmonious 
interlude  with  discord  before  and  triple  discord 
to  come  in  the  near  future. 

In  May,  as  usual,  the  elections  for  representa 
tives  were  held.  Boston  returned  as  the  four  to 
which  it  was  entitled,  Samuel  Adams,  Thomas 
Gushing,  James  Otis,  and  a  new  member,  des 
tined  in  the  time  coming  to  great  celebrity, 
John  Hancock.  True  to  his  self-imposed  func 
tion  of  enlisting  for  the  public  service  young 
men  likely  for  any  reason  to  be  helpful,  it  was 
Mr.  Adams  who  brought  forward  the  new  mem 
ber.  The  handsome,  free-handed  young  mer 
chant,  perhaps  the  richest  man  of  the  Province, 
began  now  a  public  career,  in  the  main  though 
not  always  useful,  almost  as  continuous  and  pro 
tracted  as  that  of  Mr.  Adams  himself. 

Still  another  noteworthy  addition  was  made 
this  year  to  the  Assembly  in  Joseph  Haw  ley, 
sent  as  member  for  Northampton  on  the  Con 
necticut  River,  a  man  of  the  purest  character,  of 


THE  TRUE  SENTIMENTS  OF  AMERICA.       93 

bright  intellect,  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  pa 
triots,  and  especially  helpful  through  his  pro 
found  legal  knowledge.  His  influence  was  pow 
erful  with  the  country  members,  who  sometimes 
showed  a  jealousy,  not  unusual  in  the  present 
day,  of  the  representatives  of  the  metropolis. 
Samuel  Adams  and  Hawley  thoroughly  appre 
ciated  one  another,  and  worked  hand  in  hand 
through  many  a  difficult  crisis  in  the  years  that 
were  approaching. 

During  the  troubled  sessions  to  come  Thomas 
Gushing  was  chosen  each  year  the  speaker  — 
an  honorable  but  not  especially  significant  man 
among  the  patriots,  who,  through  the  fact  that 
he  was  figure-head  of  the  House,  was  sometimes 
credited  in  England  and  among  the  other  colo 
nies  with  an  importance  which  he  never  really 
possessed.  Samuel  Adams  at  the  same  time 
was  made  clerk,  a  position  which  gave  him 
some  control  of  the  business  of  the  House,  and 
was  worth  about  a  hundred  pounds  a  year. 
His  ability  in  drafting  documents  was  now  par 
ticularly  in  place  ;  at  the  same  time  he  was  not 
at  all  debarred  from  appearing  in  debate.  From 
this  time  forward,  until  he  went  to  Congress  at 
Philadelphia,  he  was  annually  made  clerk,  the 
little  stipend  forming  often  his  sole  means  of 
support. 

At  the  instance  of  James  Otis,  on  the  3d  of 


94  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

June,  the  debates  of  the  Assembly  were  thrown 
open  to  the  public,  and  arrangements  were  made 
for  a  gallery  where  the  sessions  could  be  wit 
nessed  by  all.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  legislative  associations  it  was  made  the  right 
yof  the  plain  citizen  to  hear  and  see  —  a  usage 
which  has  modified  in  important  ways  the  pro 
ceedings  and  very  character  of  deliberative  bod 
ies. 

No  long-headed  statesman  in  the  colonies,  in 
face  of  the  Declaratory  Act,  could  feel  that  the 
contest  with  the  home  government  was  any 
thing  more  than  adjourned,  and  the  wary  Mas 
sachusetts  managers  were  careful  not  to  be 
caught  napping.  The  constitution  of  the  Coun 
cil  or  upper  house  will  be  remembered.  It 
consisted  of  twenty-eight  members,  elected  each 
year  by  the  Assembly  and  the  preceding  Coun 
cil,  voting  together ;  the  governor  possessed  the 
power  of  rejecting  thirteen  of  the  twenty-eight 
elected.  Immediately  after  the  organization  of 
the  Assembly  at  the  end  of  May,  Bernard  and 
the  leaders  came  to  strife  as  to  the  composition 
of  the  new  Council.  There  were  five  persons 
upon  the  election  of  whom  the  governor's  heart 
was  especially  fixed,  —  Hutchinson,  Andrew 
and  Peter  Oliver,  Trowb ridge,  and  Lynde. 
They  were  "prerogative  men"  and  very  im 
portant  in  the  way  of  keeping  in  check  in  the 


THE  TRUE  SENTIMENTS  OF  AMERICA.       95 

upper  house  any  feeling  of  sympathy  with  the 
spirit  of  opposition,  which  was  sure  to  be  rife 
in  the  Assembly.  As  Bernard  was  anxious  to 
retain  them,  the  popular  leaders  were  just  as 
anxious  to  exclude  them ;  Hutchinson,  in  par 
ticular,  from  his  great  ability  and  influence,  was 
especially  desired  on  the  one  hand  and  dreaded 
on  the  other.  These  five  the  Assembly  refused 
to  reelect,  taking  the  ground  that,  as  crown  of 
ficials,  it  was  inappropriate  that  they  should  sit 
in  the  legislature.  Hutchinson  was  lieutenant- 
governor,  chief  justice,  and  judge  of  probate  ; 
the  Olivers  were  respectively  secretary  and 
judge  in  the  Superior  Court,  Lynde  was  a 
judge  also,  and  Trowbridge  was  -attorney-gen 
eral.  In  a  paper  justifying  the  course  of  the 
Assembly,  drafted  by  Adams,  but  in  the  com 
position  of  which  Otis  no  doubt  had  a  share, 
the  desire  was  expressed  to  release  "  the  judges 
from  the  cares  and  perplexities  of  politics,  and 
give  them  an  opportunity  to  make  still  further 
advances  in  the  knowledge  of  the  law."  Ber 
nard  possessed  no  means  of  constraining  the 
election  of  his  friends.  He  rejected  six  of  the 
councilors  elected  by  the  Assembly,  by  way  of 
retaliation,  and  scolded  the  body  sharply.  The 
vacancies  remained  unfilled,  although  Hutchin 
son  tried  to  retain  his  place  on  the  strength  of 
his  office  as  lieutenant-governor.  The  Assem- 


96  SAMUEL  ADAMS, 

bly  was  inflexible.  Into  the  place  of  leader  of 
the  Council  stepped  the  excellent  James  Bow- 
doin,  a  well-to-do  merchant  of  Huguenot  de 
scent,  of  the  best  sense  and  character,  who 
henceforth  for  many  years  played  a  most  use 
ful  part ;  at  present  he  rendered  great  service 
by  keeping  the  Council  and  the  Assembly  in 
accord. 

Hawley  at  once  made  himself  felt  as  a  bold 
and  clear-headed  statesman.  "  The  Parliament 
ot  Great  Britain,"  said  he,  during  this  session, 
"  has  no  right  to  legislate  for  us."  Hereupon 
James  Otis,  rising  in  his  seat,  and  bowing  to 
ward  Hawley,  exclaimed :  "  He  has  gone  far 
ther  than  I  have  yet  done  in  this  house."  With 
his  lawyer's  acumen  the  Northampton  member 
seemed  to  appreciate  the  untenability  of  Pitt's 
opinion  and  to  reject  it  at  once.  In  1766,  to 
deny  to  Parliament  the  right  of  legislating  for 
the  colonies  was  advanced  ground,  but  it  came 
soon  to  be  generally  occupied. 

In  December,  1766,  soon  after  the  adjourn 
ment  of  the  legislature,  a  vessel,  having  on 
board  two  companies  of  royal  artillery,  was 
driven  by  stress  of  weather  into  Boston  harbor. 
The  governor,  by  advice  of  the  Council,  directed 
that  provision  should  be  made  for  them  at  the 
expense  of  the  Province,  following  the  prece 
dent  established  shortly  before,  when  a  com- 


THE   TRUE  SENTIMENTS  OF  AMERICA.       97 

pany  had  been  organized  to  be  paid  by  the 
Province,  but  without  the  consent  of  the  rep 
resentatives,  for  the  protection  of  the  stamps 
at  the  castle.  In  the  case  in  hand  humanity 
demanded  that  the  soldiers  should  be  received 
and  provided  for  ;  a  principle,  however,  was 
again  violated  in  a  way  which  sharp-eyed  patri 
ots  could  not  overlook.  Here  resistance  was 
made,  as  in  the  previous  case,  and  we  find  now 
the  beginnings  of  a  matter  which  developed 
into  great  importance. 

According  to  the  account  of  Hutchinson,  the 
jealousy  which  the  country  towns  had  felt  of 
the  influence  of  Boston  was  disappearing  at  the 
time  of  the  Stamp  Act.  Thenceforward  the 
leaders  are  for  the  most  part  the  Boston  men, 
who  project  and  conduct  all  the  measures  of 
importance.  In  the  intervals  between  the  ses 
sions  of  the  Assembly,  town-meetings  are  fre 
quent,  in  which  general  interests,  as  well  as 
things  purely  local,  are  considered.  In  town- 
meeting  and  Assembly  the  leaders  are  the  same, 
a  select  body  of  whom  meet  at  stated  times  and 
places  in  the  evening,  at  least  once  a  week,  to 
concert  plans,  inspire  the  newspapers,  arrange 
for  news. 

With  calmness  and  accuracy  Hutchinson 
states  the  gradual  changes  of  position  which 
the  colonies  assume  as  the  contest  proceeds. 


98  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

The  view  which  advanced  minds  had  some  time 
before  adopted  became  general.  The  author 
ity  of  Parliament  to  pass  any  acts  whatever 
affecting  the  interior  polity  of  the  colonies  was 
called  in  question,  as  destroying  the  effect  of 
the  charters.  King,  lords,  ffid  commons,  it  is 
said,  form  the  legislature  of  Great  Britain  ;  so 
the  king  by  his  governors,  the  councils  and  as 
semblies,  forms  the  legislatures  of  the  colonies. 
But  as  colonies  cannot  make  laws  to  extend 
farther  than  their  respective  limits,  Parliament 
must  interpose  in  all  cases  where  the  legisla 
tive  power  of  the  colonies  is  ineffectual.  Here 
the  line  of  the  authority  of  Parliament  ought 
to  be  drawn  ;  all  beyond  is  encroachment  upon 
the  constitutional  powers  of  the  colonial  legis 
latures.  This  doctrine,  says  Hutchinson,  was 
taught  in  every  colony  from  Virginia  to  Massa 
chusetts,  as  early  as  1767. 

The  liberal  Rockingham  administration,  after 
a  few  months  of  power,  disappeared,  having  sig 
nalized  itself  as  regarded  America  by  the  re 
peal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  by  the  Declaratory 
Act.  Of  the  new  ministry  the  leading  spirit 
was  Charles  Townshend,  a  brilliant  statesman, 
but  unscrupulous  and  unwise.  His  inclinations 
were  arbitrary ;  he  regretted  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  as  did  also  the  king  and  Parliament 
in  general,  who  felt  themselves  to  have  been 


THE  TRUE  SENTIMENTS   OF  AMERICA.       99 

humiliated.  Pitt,  indeed,  now  Earl  of  Chatham, 
was  a  member  of  the  government ;  but,  op 
pressed  by  illness,  he  could  exercise  no  restraint 
upon  his  colleague,  and  the  other  members  were 
either  in  sympathy  with  Townshend's  views,  or 
unable  to  oppose  him.  Townshend's  three 
measures  affecting  America,  introduced  on  the 
13th  of  May,  1767,  were :  a  suspension  of  the 
functions  of  the  legislature  of  New  York  for 
contumacy  in  the  treatment  of  the  royal  troops  ; 
the  establishment  of  commissioners  of  the  cus 
toms,  appointed  with  large  powers  to  super 
intend  laws  relating  to  trade ;  and  lastly  an 
impost  duty  upon  glass,  red  and  white  lead, 
painters'  colors,  paper,  and  tea.  This  was  an 
"  external "  duty  to  which  the  colonists  had 
heretofore  expressed  a  willingness  to  submit; 
but  the  grounds  of  Jhe  disputa^sgfira..  shifting. 
Townshend  had  declared  that  he  held  in  con 
tempt  the  distinction  sought  to  be  drawn  be 
tween  external  and  internal  taxes,  but  that  he 
would  so  far  humor  the  colonists  in  their  quib 
ble  as  to  make  his  tax  of  that  kind  of  which 
the  right  was  admitted.  A  revenue  of  £ 40,000 
a  year  was  expected  from  the  tax,  which  was 
to  be  applied  to  the  support  of  a  "  civil  list," 
namely,  the  paying  the  salaries  of  the  new 
commissioners  of  customs,  and  of  the  judges 
and  governors,  who  were  to  be  relieved  wholly 


100  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

or  in  part  from  their  dependence  upon  the  an 
nual  grants  of  the  Assemblies  ;  then,  if  a  sur 
plus  remained,  it  was  to  go  to  the  payment  of 
troops  for  protecting  the  colonies.  To  make 
more  efficient,  moreover,  the  enforcement  of  the 
revenue  laws,  the  writs  of  assistance,  the  de 
nunciation  of  which  by  James  Otis  had  formed 
so  memorable  a  crisis,  were  formally  legalized. 

The  popular  discontent,  appeased  by  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  was  at  once  awake 
again,  and  henceforth  in  the  denial  of  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  tax,  we  hear  no  more 
of  acquiescence  in  commercial  restrictions  and 
in  the  general  legislative  authority  of  Parlia 
ment.  A  knowledge  of  the  scandalous  pen 
sion  list  in  England,  the  monstrous  abuses  of 
patronage  in  Ireland,  the  corruptions  which 
already  existed  in  America,  made  the  people 
indignant  at  the  thought  of  an  increase  in  the 
numbers  and  pay  of  placemen. 

Now  it  is  that  still  another  of  the  foster 
children  of  Samuel  Adams  emerges  into  prom 
inence,  the  bright  and  enthusiastic  Josiah  Quin- 
cy,  already  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  becom 
ing  known  as  a  writer,  who  urges  an  armed 
resistance  at  once  to  the  plans  of  the  ministry. 
It  was  the  over-hasty  counsel  of  youth,  and  the 
plan  for  resistance  adopted  by  the  cooler  heads 
was  that  of  Samuel  Adams,  namely,  the  non- 


THE   TRUE  SENTIMENTS   OF  AMERICA.    101 

importation  and  the  non-consumption  of  Brit 
ish  products.  From  Boston  out,  through  an 
impulse  proceeding  from  him,  town-meetings 
were  everywhere  held  to  encourage  the  man 
ufactures  of  the  Province  and  reduce  the  use  of 
superfluities,  long  lists  of  which  were  enumer 
ated.  Committees  were  appointed  everywhere 
to  procure  subscriptions  to  agreements  looking 
to  the  furtherance  of  home  industries  and  the 
disuse  of  foreign  products. 

But  while  some  were  watchful,  others  were 
supine  or  indeed  reactionary.  Pending  the  op 
eration  of  the  non-consumption  arrangements, 
which  were  not  to  go  into  effect  until  the  end 
of  the  year,  a  general  quiet  prevailed,  at  which 
the  friends  of  the  home  government  felt  great 
satisfaction.  They  declared  that  the  "faction 
dared  not  show  its  face,"  and  that  "  our  incen 
diaries  seem  discouraged,"  and  in  particular  they 
took  much  hope  from  the  course  pursued  by 
James  Otis.  He,  on  the  20th  of  November,  in 
town-meeting,  made  a  long  speech  on  the  side 
of  the  government,  asserted  the  right  of  the 
king  to  appoint  officers  of  customs  in  what  num 
ber  and  by  what  name  he  pleased,  and  declared 
it  imprudent  to  oppose  the  new  duties.  Of  the 
five  commissioners  of  customs  three  had  just  ar 
rived  from  England,  the  most  important  among 
them  being  Paxton,  whose  influence  had  been 


102  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

felt  in  the  establishment  of  the  board.  Robin 
son  and  Temple,  the  other  members,  were  al 
ready  on  the  ground.  In  their  early  meetings, 
while  the  Province  in  general  seemed  quiet,  and 
the  voice  of  Otis  in  Faneuil  Hall  advocated  a 
respectful  treatment  of  the  board  and  a  com 
pliance  with  the  regulations  they  were  to  en 
force,  they  had  some  reason  to  feel  that  in  spite 
of  the  hot-headed  boy,  Quincy,  and  Samuel 
Adams  with  his  impracticable  non-consump 
tion  schemes,  the  task  of  the  commissioners 
"was  likely  to  be  an  easy  one. 

Before  the  full  effects  of  the  new  legislation 
could  be  seen,  Townshend  suddenly  died  ;  but 
in  the  new  ministry  that  was  presently  formed 
Lord  North  came  to  the  front,  and  adopted  the 
policy  of  his  predecessor,  receiving  in  this 
course  the  firm  support  of  the  king,  whose 
activity  and  interest  were  so  great  in  public 
affairs  that  he  "  became  his  own  minister."  As 
the  business  of  the  colonies  grew  every  day 
more  important,  it  was  thought  necessary  at 
the  end  of  the  year  to  appoint  a  secretary  of 
state  for  the  American  department.  For  this 
office  Lord  Hillsborough  was  named,  who  had 
been  before  at  the  head  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 
The  new  official  did  not  hesitate  to  adopt  ag 
gressive  measures,  granting,  for  his  first  act,  to 
the  many-functioned  Hutchinson  a  pension  of 


THE   TRUE  SENTIMENTS   OF  AMERICA.    103 

two  hundred  pounds,  to  be  paid  by  the  commis 
sioners  of  customs,  through  which  he  became  in 
a  measure  independent  of  the  people. 

Of  the  three  men  now  leaders  of  the  Assem 
bly,  Hawley  lived  at  a  distance  and  was  only 
occasionally  in  Boston,  which  became  more 
and  more  the  centre  of  influence.  A  certain 
excitability,  moreover,  which  made  him  some 
times  over-sanguine  and  sometimes  despondent, 
hurt  his  usefulness.  Otis,  sinking  more  and 
more  into  the  power  of  the  disease  which  in 
the  end  was  to  destroy  him,  grew  each  year 
more  eccentric.  Samuel  Adams,  always  on  the 
ground,  always  alert,  steady,  indefatigable,  pos 
sessing  daily  more  and  more  the  confidence  of 
the  Province,  as  he  had  before  gained  that  of 
the  town,  became  constantly  more  marked  as,  in 
loyalist  parlance,  the  "chief  incendiary."  Just 
at  this  time,  in  the  winter  session  of  the  leg 
islature  of  1767-68,  he  produced  a  series  of  re 
markable  papers,  in  which  the  advanced  ground 
now  occupied  by  the  leaders  was  elaborately, 
firmly,  and  courteously  stated. 

The  first  letter,  adopted  by  the  Assembly 
January  13,  1768,  is  to  Dennys  Deberdt,  the 
agent  of  the  Assembly  in  London,  and  intended 
of  course  to  be  made  public.  The  different 
members  of  the  ministry  and  the  lords  of  the 
treasury  were  also  addressed,  and  at  last  the 


104  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

king.     There  is  no- whisper  in  the  documents 
of  a  desire  for  independence. 

"There  is  an  English  affection  in  the  colonists  to 
wards  the  mother  country,  which  will  forever  keep 
them  connected  with  her  to  every  valuable  purpose, 
unless  it  shall  be  erased  by  repeated  unkind  usage  on 
her  part." 

The  injustice  of  taxation  without  representa 
tion  is  stated  at  length,  the  impossibility  of  a 
representation  of  the  colonies  in  Parliament  is 
dwelt  upon,  and  a  voluntary  subsidy  is  men 
tioned  as  the  only  proper  and  legal  way  in 
which  the  colonies  should  contribute  to  the 
imperial  funds.  The  impropriety  of  giving  sti 
pends  to  governors  and  judges  independent  of 
the  legislative  grants  is  urged,  and  the  griev 
ance  of  the  establishment  of  commissioners  of 
customs  with  power -to  appoint  placemen  is  as 
sailed.  No  passage  is  more  energetic  than  that 
in  which  the  Puritan  forefends  the  encroach 
ments  of  prelacy. 

"  The  establishment  of  a  Protestant  episcopate  in 
America  is  also  very  zealously  contended  for ;  and  it 
is  very  alarming  to  a  people  whose  fathers,  from  the 
hardships  they  suffered  under  such  an  establishment, 
were  obliged  to  fly  their  native  country  into  a  wilder 
ness,  in  order  peaceably  to  enjoy  their  privileges, 
civil  and  religious.  Their  being  threatened  with  the 
loss  of  both  at  once  must  throw  them  into  a  disagree- 


THE  TRUE  SENTIMENTS  OF  AMERICA.    105 

able  situation.  We  hope  in  God  such  an  establish 
ment  will  never  take  place  in  America,  and  we  desire 
you  would  strenuously  oppose  it.  The  revenue  raised 
in  America,  for  aught  we  can  tell,  may  be  as  consti 
tutionally  applied  towards  the  support  of  prelacy  as 
of  soldiers  and  pensioners." 

As  a  final  measure  a  "  Circular  Letter  "  was 
sent  to  "  each  House  of  Representatives  or 
Burgesses  on  the  Continent." 

The  authorship  of  these  documents  has  been 
claimed  for  Otis,  the  assertion  being  made  tha 
Adams  was  concerned  with  them  only  as  his 
sistant.  The  claim  is,  however,  quite  untenable. 
In  style  and  contents  they  reflect  Adams,  while 
they  are  in  many  points  inconsistent  with  the 
manner  and  opinions  of  Otis.  Aside  from  the 
strong  internal  evidence,  the  most  satisfactory 
external  proofs  have  been  produced.  Mrs.  Han 
nah  Wells,  the  daughter  of  Samuel  Adams, 
used  to  say*  that,  when  her  father  was  busy 
with  the  composition  of  the  petition  to  the 
king,  she  one  day  said  to  him,  in  girlish  awe 
before  the  far-off  mighty  potentate,  that  the 
paper  would  doubtless  be  soon  touched  by  the 
royal  hand.  "  It  will,  my  dear,"  he  replied, 
"more  likely  be  spurned  by  the  royal  foot."  It 
is  a  significant  anecdote  as  showing  that  he 
himself  had  little  confidence  that  the  effort  of 
the  Province  would  meet  with  favor.  Though 


106  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

eminent  statesmen  had  been  personally  ap 
pealed  to,  and  finally  the  king,  the  Assembly 
were  careful  to  send  no  memorial  to  Parliament, 
not  recognizing  its  right  to  interfere. 

Even  more  important  than  the  documents 
sent  abroad  was  the  "  Circular  Letter "  dis 
patched  by  the  Assembly  to  its  sister  bodies 
throughout  America  during  the  same  session. 
When  the  measure  was  first  proposed  by  Mr. 
Adams,  there  was  a  large  majority  against  it,  for 
the  feeling  in  England  against  concerted  action 
in  the  colonies  was  well  known,  and  there  was  a 
disinclination  to  cause  any  unnecessary  friction. 
In  a  fortnight,  however,  a  complete  change  had 
been  wrought,  for  the  measure  was  carried 
triumphantly,  the  preceding  action  of  the  House 
being  erased  from  the  record.  A  few  days  af 
ter,  on  February  llth,  the  form  of  the  letter 
was  reported,  again  from  the  hand  of  Mr.  Ad 
ams.  In  it  a  statement  was  made  of  the  expe 
diency  of  providing  for  a  uniform  plan  in  the 
action  of  the  different  legislatures  for  remon 
strances  against  the  government  policy,  infor 
mation  was  given  as  to  the  action  of  Massachu 
setts,  and  communication  was  invited  as  to  the 
measures  of  the  rest.  Great  pains  were  taken 
to  disclaim  all  thought  of  influencing  others. 

"  The  House  is  fully  satisfied  that  your  Assembly  is 
too  generous  and  enlarged  in  sentiment  to  believe 


THE    TRUE  SENTIMENTS    OF  AMERICA.    107 

that  this  letter  proceeds  from  an  ambition  of  taking 
the  lead  or  dictating  to  the  other  Assemblies.  They 
freely  submit  their  opinion  to  the  judgment  of  others, 
and  shall  take  it  kind  in  your  House  to  point  out  to 
them  anything  further  that  may  be  thought  neces 
sary." 

The  utmost  care  and  tact  were  evidently 
believed  to  be  in  place,  to  avoid  exciting  jeal 
ousy.  The  "  Circular  Letter  "  had  a  good  re 
ception  from  the  various  bodies  to  which  it  was 
addressed,  and  exasperated  correspondingly  the 
loyalists.  The  crown  officers  of  Massachusetts 
sent  energetic  memorials  to  England  ;  Bernard 
in  particular,  besides  detailing  the  new  outrage, 
enlarged  upon  the  older  grievance,  the  deter 
mination  of  the  Assembly  to  exclude  the  crown 
officers  from  the  Council. 

The  same  month  of  February  was  still  further 
signalized  by  the  coining  forward  into  promi 
nence  of  yet  another  of  the  prot£g£s  of  Samuel 
Adams,  perhaps  the  ablest  and  most  interest 
ing  of  all,  Joseph  Warren,  who,  although  for 
some  years  a  writer  for  the  newspapers,  now,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-seven,  made  for  the  first  time 
a  real  sensation  by  a  vehement  arraignment  of 
Bernard  in  the  "  Boston  Gazette."  The  sen 
sitive  governor,  touched  to  the  quick  by  the 
diatribe,  for  such  it  was,  and  unable  to  induce 
the  legislature  to  act  in  the  matter,  prorogued 


108  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

it  in  a  mood  of  exasperation  not  at  all  surpris 
ing  ;  not,  however,  until  a  series  of  resolutions 
had  been  reported  by  a  committee  of  which 
Otis  and  Adams  were  members,  discouraging 
foreign  importations  and  stimulating  home  in 
dustries.  These  were  passed  with  no  dissenting 
voice  but  that  of  stalwart  Timothy  Ruggles, 
who,  having  honestly  espoused  the  cause  of 
king  and  Parliament,  opposed  himself  now  to 
the  strong  set  of  the  popular  current,  careless 
of  results  to  himself,  with  the  same  soldierly 
resolution  he  had  brought  to  the  aid  of  Aber- 
crombie  and  Sir  Jeffrey  Amherst  in  the  hard 
fighting  of  the  Old  French  War. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  AEEIVAL  OF  THE  TEOOPS. 

IF  we  look  back  through  the  controversy  that 
preceded  the  independence  of  America,  the  year 
1768  stands  out  as  an  important  one.  The 
adoption  by  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  of 
the  state  papers  described  in  the  preceding 
chapter  signalized  the  opening  of  the  year. 
These  were  presently  after  published  together 
in  England  by  that  liberal-handed  friend  of 
America,  Thomas  Hollis,  under  the  title,  "  The 
True  Sentiments  of  America."  They  impressed 
profoundly  public  sentiment  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic.  Events  of  commensurate  im 
portance  presently  followed,  and  the  year  was 
not  to  close  without  a  marked  increase  in  the 
estrangement  between  mother-land  and  colo 
nists. 

In  Pennsylvania  the  "  Farmer's  Letters  "  of 
John  Dickinson  were  meeting  with  wide  ap 
proval  and  quickly  obtained  circulation  in  the 
colonies  in  general.  They  were  entirely  in  ac 
cord  with  the  Massachusetts  utterances,  and 


110  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

proved  that,  while  Franklin  was  in  England, 
he  had  left  men  behind  in  his  Province  well 
able  to  take  care  of  the  public  welfare.  Boston 
town-meeting,  in  the  spring,  appointed  Samuel 
Adams,  John  Hancock,  and  Joseph  Warren  to 
express  to  Dickinson  its  thanks.  Meantime 
though,  as  has  been  seen,  the  author  of  the 
papers  of  January  had  little  hope  that  they 
would  meet  with  a  kind  reception,  the  people 
were  more  sanguine,  and  looked  for  a  good  re 
sult.  Hillsborough,  however,  never  presented 
the  letter  to  the  king.  The  government  found 
nothing  but  unreasonable  contumacy  in  the 
"  True  Sentiments  of  America."  The  "  Circu 
lar  Letter  "  was  regarded  as  distinctly  seditious, 
and  Bernard  was  required  to  demand  of  the  leg 
islature  that  it  should  be  rescinded,  under  threat 
of  constant  prorogation  until  it  should  be  done. 
To  give  emphasis  to  the  government  threat, 
General  Gage,  commander  of  the  forces  in 
America,  with  headquarters  in  New  York,  was 
ominously  directed  "  to  maintain  the  public 
-^tranquillity." 

A  naval  force  also  was  dispatched  to  Boston, 
of  which  the  first  vessel  to  arrive  was  the  fifty- 
gun  ship  Romney,  which  signalized  its  ap 
proach  from  Halifax  in  May  by  impressing 
New  England  seamen  from  vessels  met  off  the 
coast.  Great  ill-will  existed  between  the  peo- 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     Ill 

pie  and  the  ship's  crew,  which  burst  into  flame 
a  few  weeks  after  in  the  affair  of  the  Liberty, 
a  sloop  owned  by  Hancock,  which  had  broken 
the  revenue  laws.  A  serious  riot  came  near  re 
sulting.  The  commissioners  of  customs,  having 
in  mind  the  Stamp  Act  riots  four  years  before, 
took  refuge  at  the  Castle ;  Bernard  withdrew 
to  his  house  in  Roxbury;  while  the  people 
thronged  to  town-meeting,  which,  as  usual, 
when  the  numbers  overflowed,  flocked  from 
Faneuil  Hall  to  the  Old  South.  As  James 
Otis  entered  he  was  received  with  cheers  and 
clapping  qf  hands  ;  he  was  made  moderator  by 
acclamation,  and  presently  was  storming  mag 
nificently  before  the  enthusiastic  thousands. 
No  alarming  result,  however,  followed.  Ber 
nard,  reasonably  somewhat  anxious  at  Roxbury, 
with  scarcely  a  man  to  rely  on  if  force  should 
be  used,  heard  at  last  that  the  emissaries  of  the 
people  were  coming.  It  must  have  been  with 
much  relief  that  he  saw  presently  a  quiet  pro 
cession  of  eleven  chaises  draw  up  before  his 
door,  from  which  alighted  two-and-twenty  citi 
zens,  with  a  member  of  his  Council  at  their 
head,  and  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams  among  the 
number.  A  representation  of  grievances  was 
made  in  decided  but  temperate  terms  ;  chief  of 
all,  the  demand  was  urged  that  the  Romney 
should  be  removed  from  the  harbor. 


112  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  I  received  them,"  wrote  Bernard,  "  with  all 
possible  civility,  and  having  heard  their  petition  I 
talked  with  them  very  freely  upon  the  subject,  but 
postponed  giving  them  a  final  answer  until  the  next 
day,  as  it  should  be  in  writing.  I  then  had  wine 
handed  around,  and  they  left  me  highly  pleased  with 
their  reception." 

Bernard  declared  that  lie  had  no  authority 
to  remove  the  Romney,  and  the  matter  rested 
there,  the  crown  officials,  not  unreasonably, 
pressing  more  urgently  than  ever  for  a  body  of 
troops  for  their  protection.  The  disturbance 
had,  to  be  sure,  proved  slight,  bat  it  might 
easily  have  become  a  grave  affair.  In  the  in 
structions  of  the  town  to  the  representatives, 
adopted  in  May,  written  by  John  Adams,  now 
resident  in  Boston,  Hutchinson  calls  attention 
to  a  significant  attenuation  of  the  usual  loyal 
expression. 

"  They  declare  a  reverence  and  due  subordination 
to  the  British  Parliament,  as  the  supreme  legislative, 
in  all  cases  of  necessity  for  the  preservation  of  the 
whole  empire.  This  is  a  singular  manner  of  express 
ing  the  authority  of  Parliament." 

The  whole  continent  had  approved  the  "  Cir 
cular  Letter."  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  Geor 
gia,  and  Virginia  had  responded,  which  caused 
Samuel  Adams  to  exclaim  in  terms  which  he 
afterwards  used  on  a  still  more  memorable  oc- 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     113 

casion,  "  This  is  a  glorious  day !  "  When  the 
demand  that  the  "  Circular  Letter  "  should  be 
rescinded  became  known  to  the  Assembly, 
through  a  message  from  Bernard  in  which  a 
letter  from  Hillsborough  was  quoted,  a  letter 
written  by  Samuel  Adams  was  twice  read  and 
twice  accepted,  by  a  vote  of  ninety-two  to  thir 
teen,  and  ordered  to  be  sent  to  Hillsborough 
by  the  first  opportunity,  without  imparting  its 
contents  to  the  governor  or  the  public.  The 
letter  closes  with  the  hope  that  "  to  acquaint 
their  fellow-subjects  involved  in  the  same  dis 
tress  of  their  having  invited  the  union  of  all 
America  in  one  joint  supplication,  would  not 
be  discountenanced  by  our  gracious  sovereign 
as  a  measure  of  an  inflammatory  nature." 

The  letter  was  sent  by  the  first  conveyance. 
Mr.  Adams  withheld  it  from  publication  as  long 
as  he  considered  that  the  public  interests  were 
subserved  by  so  doing ;  then  he  resolved  to 
have  it  printed  in  the  "  Boston  Gazette.'1  Ber 
nard  thus  relates  a  scene  reported  to  him  :  — 

"  This  morning  the  two  consuls  of  the  faction  — 
Otis  and  Adams  —  had  a  dispute  upon  it  in  the  rep 
resentatives'  room,  where  the  papers  of  the  house 
are  kept,  which  I  shall  write  as  a  dialogue  to  save 
paper : — 

"  Otis.  —  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  let 
ter  to  Lord  Hillsborough  ? 
8 


114  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"Adams.  —  To  give  it  to  the  printer  to  publish 
next  Monday. 

"  Otis.  —  Do  you  think  it  proper  to  publish  it  so 
soon,  that  he  may  receive  a  printed  copy  before  the 
original  comes  to  his  hand  ? 

"  Adams.  —  What  signifies  that  ?  You  know  it 
was  designed  for  the  people,  and  not  for  the  minis 
ter. 

"  Otis.  —  You  are  so  fond  of  your  own  drafts  that 
you  can't  wait  for  the  publication  of  them  to  a  proper 
time. 

"  Adams.  —  I  am  clerk  of  this  house,  and  I  will 
make  that  use  of  the  papers  which  I  please. 

"  I  had  this,"  continues  the  governor,  "  from  a 
gentleman  of  the  first  rank,  who  I  understood  was 
present." 

On  the  day  of  the  adoption  of  the  letter  to 
Hillsborough,  the  House  considered  also  the 
question  of  rescinding,  which  was  promptly  de 
cided  in  the  negative  by  a  vote  of  ninety-two 
to  seventeen.  Addressing  the  governor,  still 
by  the  hand  of  Samuel  Adams,  they  declared : 

"  The  Circular  Letters  have  been  sent  and  many 
of  them  have  been  answered  ;  those  answers  are  now 
in  the  public  papers  ;  the  public,  the  world,  must 
and  will  judge  of  the  proposals,  purposes,  and  an 
swers.  We  could  as  well  rescind  those  letters  as  the 
resolves  ;  and  both  would  be  equally  fruitless  if  by 
rescinding,  as  the  word  properly  imports,  is  meant  a 
repeal  and  nullifying  the  resolution  referred  to.'* 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     115 

Immediately  upon  this  action,  Bernard,  as 
required,  prorogued  the  Assembly,  but  not  un 
til  a  committee  had  been  appointed  to  prepare 
a  petition  praying  "  that  his  majesty  would  be 
graciously  pleased  to  remove  his  excellency, 
Francis  Bernard,  from  the  government  of  the 
Province."  Adams  justly  looked  upon  the  per 
sistence  of  the  Assembly  in  this  matter  as  an 
important  triumph,  and  often  referred  to  it  in 
times  when  the  people's  cause  was  depressed, 
during  the  years  that  were  coming,  to  invigo 
rate  the  spirit  of  his  party.  Since  the  governor 
had  been  directed  to  prorogue  the  Assembly 
as  often  as  it  should  come  together,  until  the 
"  Circular  Letter  "  should  be  rescinded,  Massa 
chusetts  in  July,  1768,  had  practically  no  leg 
islature.  The  colonies  in  general  approved  the 
stand  of  that  Province,  and  the  necessity  of 
union  began  to  be  felt. 

In  the  democracy  of  Boston,  Samuel  Adams, 
among  the  leaders,  was  especially  the  favorite 
of  the  mechanics  and  laborers.  His  popularity 
was  particularly  marked  in  the  ship-yards,  the 
craftsmen  in  which  exercised  a  great  influence. 
His  own  poverty,  plain  clothes,  and  careless 
ness  as  to  ceremony  and  display,  caused  them 
to  feel  that  he  was  more  nearly  on  a  level  with 
themselves  than  Bowdoin,  Gushing,  Otis,  or 
Hancock,  who  through  wealth  or  distinguished 


116  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

connections  were  led  to  affiliate  with  the  rich 
and  high-placed.  Though  the  legislature  could 
not  convene,  the  restless  patriot  could  find 
his  opportunity  in  the  town-meetings  ;  and  if 
they  were  infrequent,  he  poured  himself  into 
the  newspapers.  Constant,  too,  were  the  ha 
rangues  which  he  delivered  in  his  intercourse 
with  the  townsmen,  sitting  side  by  side  with 
some  ship  -  carpenter  on  a  block  of  oak,  just 
above  the  tide,  or  with  some  shop-keeper  in  a 
fence  corner  sheltered  from  the  wind.  Most 
of  his  writing  was  done  in  a  study  adjoining  his 
bed-room  in  the  Purchase  Street  house.  His 
wife  used  to  tell  how  she  was  accustomed  to 
listen  to  the  incessant  motion  of  his  pen,  the 
light  of  his  solitary  lamp  being  dimly  visible. 
Passers  in  the  street  would  often  see,  long  after 
midnight,  the  light  from  his  well-known  win 
dow,  and  "  knew  that  Sam  Adams  was  hard 
V  at  work  writing  against  the  Tories."  Of  his 
ways,  as  he  moved  about  in  his  daily  walks, 
some  graphic  hints  are  given  in  an  affidavit 
which  was  taken  at  a  time  when  an  effort  was 
made  to  collect  evidence  against  him.  Under 
a  statute  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  which 
had  been  produced  from  under  the  dust  of  cen 
turies,  subjects  could  be  taken  from  foreign 
parts  to  England,  to  be  tried  for  treason.  A 
great  desire  was  felt  by  the  government  party 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     117 

to  make  out  a  case  against  Samuel  Adams  suf 
ficiently  strong  to  justify  such  deportation. 
The  project  was  abandoned,  but  the  following 
curious  memorial  of  the  attempt  is  still  pre 
served  in  the  London  state-paper  office  :  — 

"  The  information  of  Richard  Sylvester  of  Boston, 
inn-holder,  taken  before  me,  Thomas  Hutchinson, 
Esq.,  chief  justice  of  said  province,  this  twenty- third 
of  January,  in  the  ninth  year  of  his  Majesty's  reign  : 

"  This  informant  sayeth  that  the  day  after  the  boat 
belonging  to  Mr.  Harrison  was  burnt,  the  last  sum 
mer,  the  informant  observed  several  parties  of  men 
gathered  in  the  street  at  the  south  end  of  the  town 
of  Boston,  in  the  forenoon  of  the  day.  The  inform 
ant  went  up  to  one  of  the  parties,  and  Mr.  Samuel 
Adams,  then  one  of  the  representatives  of  Boston, 
happened  to  join  the  same  party  near  about  the  same 
time,  trembling  and  in  great  agitation.1  The  party 
consisted  of  about  seven  in  number,  who  were  un 
known  to  the  informant,  he  having  but  little  acquaint 
ance  with  the  inhabitants,  or,  if  any  of  them  were 
known,  he  cannot  now  recollect  them.  The  inform 
ant  heard  the  said  Samuel  Adams  then  say  to  the 
said  party,  *  If  you  are  men,  behave  like  men.  Let 
us  take  up  arms  immediately,  and  be  free,  and  seize 
all  the  king's  officers.  We  shall  have  thirty  thou 
sand  men  to  join  us  from  the  country.'  The  inform 
ant  then  walked  off,  believing  his  company  was  dis- 

1  The  constitutional  tremulousness  of  hand  and  voice  com 
mon  to  Mr.  Adams  is  elsewhere  described. 


118  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

agreeable.  The  informant  further  sayeth,  that  after 
the  burning  of  the  boat  aforesaid,  and  before  the  ar 
rival  of  the  troops,  the  said  Samuel  Adams  has  been 
divers  times  at  the  house  of  the  informant,  and  at 
one  of  those  times  particularly  the  informant  began  a 
discourse  concerning  the  times ;  and  the  said  Sam 
uel  Adams  said  :  *  We  will  not  submit  to  any  tax, 
nor  become  slaves.  We  will  take  up  arms,  and 
spend  our  last  drop  of  blood  before  the  king  and 
Parliament  shall  impose  on  us,  and  settle  crown  offi 
cers  in  this  country  to  dragoon  us.  The  country  was 
first  settled  by  our  ancestors,  therefore  we  are  free 
and  want  no  king.  The  times  were  never  better  in 
Rome  than  when  they  had  no  king  and  were  a  free 
state  ;  and  as  this  is  a  great  empire,  we  shall  have  it 
in  our  power  to  give  laws  to  England.'  The  inform 
ant  further  sayeth,  that,  at  divers  times  between  the 
burning  of  the  boat  aforesaid  and  the  arrival  of  the 
troops  aforesaid,  he  has  heard  the  said  Adams  ex 
press  himself  in  words  to  very  much  the  same  pur 
pose,  and  that  the  informant's  wife  has  sometimes 
been  present,  and  at  one  or  more  of  such  times 
George  Mason  of  Boston,  painter,  was  present.  The 
informant  further  sayeth,  that  about  a  fortnight  be 
fore  the  troops  arrived,  the  aforesaid  Samuel  Adams 
being  at  the  house  of  the  informant,  the  informant 
asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  times.  The  said 
Adams  answered,  with  great  alertness,  that,  on  light 
ing  the  beacon,  we  should  be  joined  with  thirty  thou 
sand  men  from  the  country  with  their  knapsacks  and 
bayonets  fixed,  and  added, '  We  will  destroy  every  sol- 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     119 

dier  that  dare  put  his  foot  on  shore.  His  majesty  has 
no  right  to  send  troops  here  to  invade  the  country, 
and  I  look  upon  them  as  foreign  enemies  ! '  This  in 
formant  further  sayeth,  that  two  or  three  days  before 
the  troops  arrived,  the  said  Samuel  Adams  said  to 
the  informant,  that  Governor  Bernard  and  Mr.  Hutch- 
inson  and  the  commissioners  of  the  customs  had  sent 
for  troops,  and  the  said  Adams  made  bitter  exclama 
tions  against  them  for  so  doing,  and  also  repeated 
most  of  the  language  about  opposing  the  king's 
troops,  which  he  had  used  as  above  mentioned  about 
a  fortnight  before.  The  informant  contradicted  the 
said  Samuel  Adams,  and  attributed  the  sending  troops 
to  the  resolve  of  the  General  Court  and  the  proceed 
ings  of  the  town-meeting. 

"  Sworn  to :  T.  Hutchinson." 

The  steps  taken  in  America  had  only 
strengthened  the  determination  of  the  govern 
ment  to  break  the  spirit  of  the  colonists.  Not 
only  was  the  project  entertained  of  sending 
Samuel  Adams  and  other  leaders  to  England 
for  trial,  but  town-meetings  were  to  be  forbid 
den,  and  an  armed  force,  consisting  of  two  reg 
iments  and  a  frigate,  was  to  be  sent  at  once  to 
Boston.  Samuel  Adams  afterward  said  that 
from  this  time  he  dismissed  all  thought  of 
reconciliation,  and  looked  forward  to,  and  la-  N 
bored  for,  independence.  Hutchinson  declares 
vthat  Adams's  efforts  for  independence  began  as  / 


120  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

early  as  1765.  It  is  well  established,  at  any 
rate,  that  though  the  vague  dream  of  a  great 
independent  American  state,  some  time  to  exist, 
had  now  and  then  found  expression,  Samuel 
Adams,  first  of  men,  saw  clearly  that  the  time 
for  it  had  come  in  the  critical  period  of  the  reign 
of  George  III.,  and  secretly  began  his  labors  for 
it.  Up  to  the  year  we  have  reached,  indeed, 
and  possibly  afterwards,  documents  which  he 
prepared  contain  loyal  expressions,  and  some 
times  seem  to  disclaim  the  wish  or  thought  of 
ever  severing  the  connection  with  the  mother 
country.  His  Tory  contemporaries  found  great 
duplicity  in  Mr.  Adams's  conduct.  He  himself 
would,  no  doubt,  have  said  that  when  he  dis 
claimed  the  thought  of  independence  he  spoke 
for  others,  the  bodies  namely  which  employed 
his  hand  to  express  their  conclusions,  that  he 
could  not  be  and  was  not  bound  in  such  cases  to 
speak  his  own  private  views.  It  must  be  con 
fessed  that  some  casuistry  is  necessary  now  and 
then  to  make  the  conduct  of  Samuel  Adams 
here  square  with  the  absolute  right.  An  ad 
vocate,  whose  sense  of  honor  is  nice,  hesitates 
to  screen  a  criminal  of  whose  guilt  he  is  con 
vinced,  by  any  reticence  as  to  his  own  views.  A 
newspaper  writer  of  the  highest  character  will 
refuse  to  postpone  his  own  sentiments,  while  he 
expresses  the  differing  sentiments  adopted  by 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     121 

the  journal  which  employs  him.  One  wonders 
if  the  puritan  conscience  of  Samuel  Adams  did 
not  now  and  then  feel  a  twinge,  when  at  the 
very  time  in  which  he  had  devoted  himself, 
body  and  soul,  to  breaking  the  link  that  bound 
America  to  England,  he  was  coining  for  this 
or  that  body  phrases  full  of  reverence  for  the 
king  and  rejecting  the  thought  of  independence. 
The  fact  was,  he  could  employ  upon  occasion  a 
certain  fox-like  shrewdness,  which  did  not  al 
ways  scrutinize  the  means  over  narrowly,  while 
he  pushed  on  for  the  great  end.  Before  our 
story  is  finished  other  instances  of  wily  and  de 
vious  management  will  come  under  our  notice, 
which  a  proper  plumb-line  will  prove  to  be  not 
quite  in  the  perpendicular.  Bold,  unselfish, 
unmistakably  pious  as  he  was,  the  Achilles  of 
independence  was  still  held  by  the  heel  when 
he  was  dipped. 

In  September,  the  Senegal  and  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  ships  of  the  fleet,  set  sail  from 
the  harbor,  and  Bernard  caused  the  rumor  to 
be  spread  abroad  that  they  were  going  for 
troops.  A  town-meeting  was  summoned,  and 
Bernard,  apprehending  insurrection,  caused  the 
beacon  on  Beacon  Hill  to  be  so  far  dismantled 
that  signals  could  not  be  sent  to  the  surround 
ing  country.  At  the  meeting,  over  which  Otis 
presided,  four  hundred  muskets  lay  on  the  floor 


122  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

of  Faneuil  Hall.  A  committee,  of  which  Sam 
uel  Adams  was  a  member,  was  appointed  to  in 
quire  of  the  governor  as  to  his  reasons  for  expect 
ing  the  troops,  and  to  request  him  to  convoke  a 
general  Assembly.  Bernard  refused,  which  con 
duct  the  committee  reported  to  an  adjourned 
meeting  on  the  day  following,  when  a  spirited 
declaration  was  made  by  the  town  of  its  pur 
pose  to  defend  its  rights.  The  governor  de 
scribed  the  meeting  to  Hillsborough  in  these 
terms :  — 

"  An  old  man  protested  against  everything  but  ris 
ing  immediately,  and  taking  all  power  into  their  own 
hands.  One  man,  very  profligate  and  abandoned, 
argued  for  massacring  their  enemies.  His  argument 
was,  in  short,  liberty  is  as  precious  as  life ;  if  a  man 
attempts  to  take  my  life,  I  have  a  right  to  take  his ; 
ergo,  if  a  man  attempts  to  take  away  my  liberty,  I 
have  a  right  to  take  his  life.  He  also  argued,  that 
when  a  people's  liberties  were  threatened,  they  were 
in  a  state  of  war,  and  had  a  right  to  defend  them 
selves  ;  and  he  carried  these  arguments  so  far,  that 
his  own  party  were  obliged  to  silence  him." 

For  the  leaders  there  was  plainly  work  to  be 
done  in  the  way  of  restraining  as  well  as  stim 
ulating.  The  policy  decided  upon  was  bold, 
but  not  without  precedent.  Since  the  governor 
refused  to  convene  the  legislature,  the  town- 
meeting  of  Boston  resolved  to  call  a  convention 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     123 

of  the  towns  of  the  Province,  by  their  represen 
tatives,  as  had  been  done  in  1688,  choosing  at 
the  same  time  Gushing,  Otis,  Samuel  Adams, 
and  Hancock  as  their  own  delegates.  Every\ 
inhabitant  also  was  exhorted  to  provide  himself  \ 
with  arms  and  ammunition,  on  the  pretext  that  \ 
a  war  with  France  was  impending.  At  once, 
on  September  22d,  the  convention  assembled  ;  1 
ninety-six  towns  and  four  districts  sent  deputies,  i 
It  was  much  embarrassed  during  the  first  three 
days  of  its  sitting  by  the  unaccountable  absence 
of  Otis,  whose  importance  was  so  great  that, 
however  strange  his  freaks  might  be,  his  pres 
ence  could  not  be  dispensed  with.  The  gov 
ernment  party  regarded  this  convention  as  the 
most  revolutionary  measure  yet  undertaken  ; 
Bernard  declared  it  to  be  illegal,  and  solemnly 
warned  it  to  disperse.  The  temper  of  the  body, 
however,  was  somewhat  reactionary,  the  coun 
try  members  in  particular  holding  back  from 
the  course  to  which  the  "  Bostoneers  "  would 
have  committed  them.  Adams,  who  was  al 
ways  in  advance,  was  little  pleased.  His  daugh 
ter  remembered  afterwards  that  he  exclaimed : 
"I  am  in  fashion  and  out  of  fashion,  as  the 
whim  goes.  I  will  stand  alone.  I  will  oppose 
this  tyranny  at  the  threshold,  though  the  fabric 
of  liberty  fall  and  I  perish  in  its  ruins."  The 
petition  of  the  preceding  legislature  to  the  king, 


124  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

however,  and  a  letter  to  Deberdt,  also  written 
by  Adams,  both  which  papers  were  manly  and 
strong,  were  adopted.  The  great  end  gained 
was  in  the  way  of  habituating  the  people  to 
coming  together  in  other  than  the  established 
ways  ;  and  the  precedent  was  found  useful  in 
the  times  that  were  approaching. 

On  the  very  day  that  the  convention  ad 
journed,  after  a  session  of  a  week,  there  arrived 
from  Halifax  the  14th  and  29th  regiments, 
which  have  come  down  in  history,  following 
the  designation  of  Lord  North,  as  the  "  Sam 
Adams  regiments,"  for  reasons  which  will 
abundantly  appear.  While  the  ships  which 
brought  them  lay  close  at  hand  in  the  harbor 
in  a  position  to  command  the  town,  the  regi 
ments  after  landing  marched  with  all  possible 
pomp  from  Long  Wharf  to  the  Common, 
where  they  paraded,  each  soldier  having  in  his 
cartridge-box  sixteen  rounds,  as  if  entering  an 
enemy's  country.  The  29th  regiment  en 
camped  on  the  Common,  but  the  14th  was 
quartered  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Bernard  insisting 
that  both  should  be  in  the  body  of  the  town. 
Samuel  Adams  wrote  the  next  week  to  De 
berdt  :  — 

"  The  inhabitants  preserve  their  peace  and  quiet 
ness.  However,  they  are  resolved  not  to  pay  their 
money  without  their  own  consent,  and  are  more  than 


THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  TROOPS.     125 

ever  determined  to  relinquish  every  article,  however 
dear,  that  comes  from  Britain.  May  God  preserve 
the  nation  from  being  greatly  injured,  if  not  finally 
ruined,  by  the  vile  ministrations  of  wicked  men  in 
America !  " 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD. 

THE  troops  had  arrived,  and  it  is  absurd  to 
think  that  Bernard  and  the  crown  officers  had 
no  reason  on  their  side  in  demanding  them. 
With  .three  quarters  of  the  people  of  the  Prov 
ince,  as  shown  by  the  composition  of  the  As 
sembly,  directly  hostile  to  the  government  pol 
icy,  and  in  Boston  a  still  larger  proportion  in 
opposition,  with  the  upper  house  of  the  legisla 
ture  through  its  constitution  scarcely  less  in 
sympathy  with  the  people  than  the  lower,  the 
governor  had  no  support  in  his  honest  efforts 
to  maintain  the  parliamentary  supremacy,  un 
less  he  could  have  the  regiments.  That  the 
commissioners  of  the  customs  had  been  foolish 
and  cowardly  in  fleeing  with  their  families  to 
the  Castle  after  the  affair  of  the  Liberty,  it  is 
quite  wrong  to  assert.  They  were  unquestion 
ably  in  danger  and  had  no  means  of  defending 
themselves.  The  unpopular  laws  which  they 
were  expected  to  administer  could  only  be  car 
ried  out  under  protection  of  a  military  force. 


THE  RECALL   OF  BERNARD.  127 

When  General  Gage  came  on  from  New 
5Tork  to  demand  quarters  for  the  regiments,  the 
Council  refused  to  grant  them  until  the  bar 
racks  at  the  Castle  were  filled,  which  was  re 
quired  by  the  letter  of  the  law.  The  main 
guard  was  finally  established  opposite  the  State 
House  in  King  Street,  with  the  cannon  pointed 
toward  the  door,  while  the  troops  were  housed 
in  buildings  hired  by  their  commander,  the  at 
tempt  to  obtain  possession  of  a  ruinous  building 
belonging  to  the  Province  being  foiled  by  its 
occupants,  who  were  backed  by  town  and  coun 
try  in  refusing  to  vacate. 

The  troops  presented  a  formidable  appear 
ance  as  they  marched  through  the  streets  and 
paraded  on  the  Common.  However  objection 
able  in  actual  service,  for  imposing  display  all 
who  are  familiar  with  armies  must  admit  that 
nothing  is  equal  to  the  British  scarlet,  when 
spread  out  over  ranks  well  filled  and  drilled, 
with  the  glitter  of  bayonets  above  the  mass  of 
superb  color.  The  Tories  took  great  heart. 
Good-natured  Dr.  Byles  congratulated  the  pa 
triots  because  their  grievances  were  at  length 
redressed  [red -dressed],  and  Hutchinson  wrote 
cheerful  letters.  The  people  were  at  first  quiet 
and  orderly,  but  by  no  means  cowed ;  and  when 
familiarity  at  length  had  bred  its  usual  conse 
quence,  a  threatening  turbulence  appeared.  A 


128  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

crowd  of  abandoned  women  followed  the  troops 
from  Halifax,  many  of  whom  before  long  be 
came  inmates  of  the  almshouses.  Before  a 
month  had  passed,  forty  men  had  deserted,  and 
one  who  was  recovered  was  summarily  shot. 
The  town,  moreover,  was  shocked  by  the  flog 
ging  of  troops,  which  was  administered  by  negro 
drummers  in  public  on  the  Common.  Strangely 
enough,  Samuel  Adams  was  once  appealed  to 
by  the  wife  of  a  soldier  sentenced  to  receive  a 
number  of  lashes  almost  sufficient  to  kill  him. 
How  the  poor  creature  could  have  formed  the 
idea  that  the  arch  rebel  would  have  influence 
with  the  commanders  it  is  hard  to  say.  He 
made  the  effort,  however,  and  the  interven 
tion  was  successful,  in  the  hope,  his  daughter 
surmises,  who  tells  the  story,  that  the  conces 
sion  would  pave  the  way  for  conciliatory  over 
tures,  with  which  he  was  afterwards  approached. 
Through  policy,  and  no  doubt  also  through  hu 
mane  inclination,  occasions  of  friction  between 
soldiers  and  townsmen  were  avoided  as  far  as 
possible  by  the  commanders ;  the  legal  restric 
tion  was  fully  recognized,  that  the  troops  could 
not  be  employed  except  upon  the  requisition  of 
a  civil  magistrate. 

Some  amusing  traditions  have  come  down  as 
to  the  extent  to  which  non-interference  was 
pursued.  At  a  legal  inquiry,  a  soldier,  who 


THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD.       129 

had  been  on  duty,  was  said  to  have  been  thus 
interrogated :  — 

"The  sentinel  being  asked  whether  he  was  on 
guard  at  the  time,  he  answered  —  Yes.  Whether  he 
saw  any  person  break  into  Mr.  Grey's  house  ?  —  Yes. 
Whether  he  said  anything  to  them  ?  —  No.  Why 
he  did  not  ?  —  Because  he  had  orders  to  challenge 
nobody.  Whether  he  looked  upon  them  to  be  thieves  ? 
—  Yes.  Why  he  did  not  make  an  alarm  and  cause 
them  to  be  secured  ?  —  Because  he  had  orders  to  do 
nothing  which  might  deprive  any  man  of  his  lib 
erty  ! " 

This  story  is  perhaps  an  invention,  but  the 
policy  which  it  parodies  was  real.  Occasions 
of  offense  were  avoided ;  a  good  discipline  was 
maintained,  and  the  collisions  which  at  length 
came  to  pass  grew  rather  out  of  the  aggressions 
of  the  townsmen  than  from  the  conduct  of  the 
troops. 

As  the  fall  and  winter  proceeded,  we  find 
Samuel  Adams  busy  in  the  newspapers,  among 
which  his  principal  organ  was  the  "  Boston 
Gazette,"  whose  bold  proprietors,  Edes  &  Gill, 
made  their  sheet  the  voice  of  the  patriot  sen 
timent  and  gave  their  office  also  to  be  a  rally- 
ing-point  for  the  popular  leaders.  Adams's 
signatures  at  this  time  are  significant :  "  Obsta 
principiis,"  "Arma  cedant  togse,"  and  "Vin- 
dex."  Through  him  the  popular  ideas  find 


130  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

expression.  He  shows  the  illegality  and  use- 
lessness  of  billeting  troops.  He  assails  the  com 
missioners  of  customs,  who,  having  returned 
from  the  Castle,  and  been  censured  by  the 
Council  because  "they  had  no  just  reason  for 
absconding  from  their  duty,"  had  taken  up 
their  quarters  in  Queen  Street.  He  considers 
the  arguments  of  the  opponents  of  America  in 
Parliament,  and  upon  this  latter  theme  is  par 
ticularly  wise  and  forcible.  The  following  let 
ter  he  contributed,  as  "  Vindex,"  to  the  "Boston 
Gazette  "  of  December  19,  1768,  and  it  would 
perhaps  be  impossible  to  find  a  better  illustra 
tion  of  the  superior  political  sense  of  the  New 
Englanders,  trained  in  town-meeting,  as  com 
pared  with  their  contemporaries  in  England. 
Speaking  of  a  certain  just  claim  of  the  col 
onies,  he  says :  — 

"  I  know  very  well  that  some  of  the  late  contenders 
for  a  right  in  the  British  Parliament  to  tax  Ameri 
cans  who  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  represented  there, 
have  denied  this.  When  pressed  with  that  funda 
mental  principle  of  nature  and  the  Constitution,  that 
what  is  a  man's  own  is  absolutely  his  own,  and  that  no 
man  can  have  a  right  to  take  it  from  him  without  his 
consent,  they  have  alleged,  and  would  fain  have  us 
believe,  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  people  in 
Britain  are  excluded  the  right  of  chusing  their  rep 
resentatives,  and  yet  are  taxed ;  and  therefore  that 


THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD.       131 

they  are  taxed  without  their  consent.  Had  not  this 
doctrine  been  repeatedly  urged,  I  should  have  thought 
the  bare  mentioning  it  would  have  opened  the  eyes  of 
the  people  there  to  have  seen  where  their  pretended 
advocates  were  leading  them :  that  in  order  to  estab 
lish  a  right  in  the  people  in  England  to  enslave  the 
Colonists  under  a  plausible  shew  of  great  zeal  for  the 
honor  of  the  nation,  they  are  driven  to  a  bold  asser 
tion,  at  all  adventures,  that  truly  the  greater  part  of 
the  nation  are  themselves  subject  to  the  same  yoke 
of  bondage.  What  else  is  it  but  saying  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  people  in  Britain  are  slaves  ?\_ 
For  if  the  fruit  of  all  their  toil  and  industry  depends  \ 
upon  so  precarious  a  tenure  as  the  will  of  a  few,  what 
security  have  they  for  the  utmost  farthing?  What 
are  they  but  slaves,  delving  with  the  sweat  of  their 
brows,  not  for  the  benefit  of  themselves,  but  their 
masters  ?  After  all  the  fine  things  that  have  been 
said  of  the  British  Constitution,  and  the  boasted  free 
dom  and  happiness  of  the  subjects  who  live  under  it, 
will  they  thank  these  modern  writers,  these  zealous 
assertors  of  the  honor  of  the  nation,  for  reducing 
them  to  a  state  inferior  to  that  of  indented  servants, 
who  generally  contract  for  a  maintenance,  at  least,  for 
their  labor?"1 

In  Parliament,  the  American  cause  was  by  no 
means  without  friends  and  advocates,  among 
whom  the  conspicuous  figure  was  now  Edmund 

1  In  most  of  the  extracts  given,  punctuation,  spelling,  cap 
itals,  and  italics  follow  those  of  the  originals,  as  they  stand  in 
the  old  newspapers  or  the  manuscripts. 


132  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Burke.  Even  Grenville  declared  that  the  order 
requiring  the  rescinding  of  the  Circular  Letter 
was  illegal.  Lord  North,  however,  in  Novem 
ber  was  "  determined  to  see  America  at  the 
king's  feet ;  "  he  led  the  ministry,  and  through 
both  houses  England  pledged  itself  to  maintain 
entire  and  inviolate  the  supreme  authority  of 
the  legislature  of  Great  Britain  over  every  part 
of  the  empire.  Hillsborough  introduced  reso 
lutions  in  the  House  of  Lords  condemning  the 
legislature  of  Massachusetts  and  the  Septem 
ber  convention,  approving  the  sending  of  the 
military  force,  and  preparing  changes  in  the 
charter  of  the  Province  which  would  lessen 
the  popular  power.  Through  the  Duke  of  Bed 
ford  steps  were  taken  toward  bringing  "the 
chief  authors  and  instigators  "  to  trial  for  trea 
son,  and  yet  the  riots  at  this  time  in  England 
were  beyond  comparison  greater  and  more 
threatening  than  any  disturbances  in  the  col 
onies.  Obstacles,  however,  were  found  to  bring 
ing  these  men  to  trial.  It  was  declared  by  the 
attorney  and  solicitor-general  to  be  impossible, 
from  the  evidence  furnished,  to  make  out  a 
case  of  treason  against  Samuel  Adams  or  any 
other  person  named.  The  straits  to  which  the 
trade  of  England  had  been  brought,  through 
the  course  pursued  by  the  colonies,  produced 
at  length  an  effect  greater  than  any  remon- 


THE  RECALL   OF  BERNARD.  133 

strances.  The  tax  upon  glass,  paper,  and  paint 
ers'  colors  was  taken  off ;  it  was,  however,  al 
lowed  to  remain  on  the  one  article,  tea. 

In  the  mean  time,  in  Boston,  the  controversy 
was  fast  and  furious.  Of  the  half-dozen  news 
papers,  the  "  Massachusetts  Gazette,"  also 
known  as  "  Draper's  "  and  the  "  Court  Gazette," 
was  the  usual  organ  of  the  administration,  as 
the  "  Boston  Gazette  "  was  of  the  popular  lead 
ers,  though  other  sheets  as  well  teemed  with 
combative  periods.  The  government  writers, 
among  whom  were  some  of  the  commissioners 
of  customs,  received  liberal  pay.  On  the  pop 
ular  side  Samuel  Adams  was  the  writer  most 
forcible  and  prolific,  and  his  contributions  went 
also  to  newspapers  at  a  distance.  The  follow 
ing  extract  is  taken  from  an  appeal  to  the  Sons 
of  Liberty,  prepared  on  the  anniversary  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  found  posted  on 
the  Liberty  Tree  in  Providence,  R.  L,  on  the 
morning  of  the  18th  of  March,  1769.  It  ap 
peared  the  same  morning  in  the  "  Providence 
Gazette,"  and  afterward  in  the  "Boston  Ga 
zette."  It  is  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  ap 
peal,  and  remarkable  from  the  significant  words' 
at  the  end.  It  is  the  first  instance,  perhaps, 
where  Samuel  Adams  in  any  public  way  hints/ 
at  independence  as  the  probable  issue  of  th/a 
difficulties.  '/ 


134  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  When  I  consider  the  corruption  of  Great  Britain, 

—  their  load  of  debt,  —  their  intestine  divisions,  tu 
mults,  and  riots,  —  their  scarcity  of  provisions,  —  and 
the  Contempt  in  which  they  are  held  by  the  nations 
about   them;    and   when    I    consider,   on   the   other 
Hand,  the  State  of  the  American  Colonies  with  Re 
gard  to  the  various  Climates,  Soils,  Produce,  rapid 
Population,  joined  to  the  virtue  of  the  Inhabitants, 

—  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  Conduct  of  Old  Eng 
land  towards  us  may  be  permitted  by  Divine  Wisdom, 
and  ordained  by  the  unsearchable  providence  of  the 
Almighty,  for  hastening  a  period  dreadful  to  Great 
Britain. 

"  A  SON  OF  LIBERTY. 
"PROVIDENCE,  March  18th,  1769." 

Great  efforts  were  made  to  obtain  circulation 
for  the  Tory  papers  (for  now  the  terms  Tory  and 
Whig,  borrowed  from  England,  had  come  into 
vogue)  ;  but  they  had  no  popular  favor  as  com 
pared  with  the  "  Boston  Gazette."  Hutchinson 
declared  that  seven  eighths  of  the  people  read 
none  but  this,  and  so  were  never  undeceived. 
The  site  of  the  office  of  Edes  &  Gill,  in  Court 
Street,  is  really  one  of  the  memorable  spots  of 
Boston.  Here  very  frequently  met  Warren, 
Otis,  Quincy,  John  Adams,  Church,  and  patri 
ots  scarcely  less  conspicuous.  In  those  groups 
Samuel  Adams  becomes  constantly  more  and 
more  the  eminent  figure.  Here  they  read  the 
exchanges,  corrected  the  proof  of  their  contri- 


THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD.       135 

butions,  strengthened  one  another  by  the  inter 
change  of  ideas,  and  planned  some  of  the  most 
remarkable  measures  in  the  course  to  independ 
ence.  At  this  time,  also,  Samuel  Adams's  con 
troversial  pen  found  other  subjects  than  British 
machinations.  His  friend,  Dr.  Chauncy,  becom 
ing  concerned  in  a  sharp  dispute  with  Seabury, 
afterwards  the  first  bishop  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church,  Adams  smote  the  prelatical 
adversary  with  a  true  Roundhead  cudgel.  To 
such  as  Seabury  he  was  uncompromisingly  hos 
tile  till  the  day  of  his  death,  though  on  one 
remarkable  occasion  hereafter  to  be  mentioned 
he  postponed  his  prejudice  to  secure  a  certain 
ulterior  end.  For  Mr.  Seabury 's  cloth  at  this 
time  he  shows  little  respect,  declaring  that  uhe 
had  managed  his  cause  with  the  heart,  though 
he  had  evidently  discovered  that  he  wanted  the 
head,  of  a  Jesuit." 

Massachusetts  had  been  nearly  a  year  with 
out  a  legislature,  when  in  May,  1769,  the  gov 
ernor  issued  a  summons  for  a  meeting.  Otis, 
Gushing,  Samuel  Adams,  and  Hancock  were 
elected  almost  unanimously  in  town-meeting, 
and  forthwith  "instructed,"  by  the  hand  of 
John  Adams,  in  the  most  determined  manner. 
The  Assembly,  as  soon  as  the  members  were 
sworn,  neglecting  the  usual  preliminary,  the 
election  of  the  clerk,  who  then  superintended 


136  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

the  election  of  the  speaker,  adopted  a  remon 
strance  prepared  by  Samuel  Adams,  demand 
ing  the  removal  of  the  troops.  When  Bernard 
alleged  that  the  power  did  not  lie  with  him, 
a  committee,  of  which  Samuel  Adams  was  a 
member,  declared  in  answer  to  the  assertion  :  — 

"  That  the  king  was  the  supreme  executive  power 
through  all  parts  of  the  British  empire,  and  that  the 
governor  of  the  Province,  being  the  king's  lieutenant 
and  captain-general  and  commander-in-chief,  it  indu 
bitably  follows  that  all  officers,  civil  and  military, 
within  the  colony  are  subject  to  his  Excellency." 

In  adopting  the  report  the  Assembly  declined 
to  proceed  to  business  under  military  duress, 
upon  which  Bernard  adjourned  them  to  Cam 
bridge,  urging  that  in  that  place  the  objection 
would  be  removed.  The  Assembly  went  to 
Cambridge,  although,  in  1728,  the  power  of  the 
governor  to  convene  the  legislature  elsewhere 
than  in  Boston  had  been  denied.  They  went, 
however,  under  protest,  and  when  in  the  suc 
ceeding  administration  they  were  again  and 
again  convened  at  Cambridge,  a  sharp  contro 
versy  resulted,  with  which  we  shall  presently 
be  concerned.  When  the  governor  urged  them 
to  hasten  their  proceedings  in  order  to  save 
time  and  money,  the  house  replied  by  Samuel 
Adams :  — 


THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD.  137 

"  No  time  can  be  better  employed  than  in  the  pres 
ervation  of  the  rights  derived  from  the  British  Con 
stitution,  and  insisting  upon  points  which,  though  your 
Excellency  may  consider  them  as  non-essential,  we 
esteem  its  best  bulwarks.  No  treasure  can  be  better 
expended  than  in  securing  that  true  old  English  lib 
erty  which  gives  a  relish  to  every  other  enjoyment." 

News  reached  Massachusetts  of  the  bold  re 
solves  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses  of 
this  year.  "  The  committee  on  the  state  of  the 
Province,"  of  which  Mr.  Adams  was  a  member, 
at  once  reported  resolutions  embodying  those 
of  Virginia  in  so  far  as  they  related  to  taxation, 
intercolonial  correspondence,  and  trial  by  jury 
of  the  vicinage.  They  went  back  to  the  *'  Mas 
sachusetts  Resolves  "  of  1765,  and  made  so  def 
inite  an  expression  of  the  claims  of  the  patriots 
that  Hutchinson  declared  "  no  such  full  decla 
ration  had  ever  before  been  made,  that  no  laws 
made  by  any  authority  in  which  the  people  had 
not  their  representatives  could  be  obligatory 
on  them."  Two  additional  regiments  had  come 
in  the  spring  to  Boston,  which,  being  judged 
quite  unnecessary,  had  been  ordered  to  Halifax. 
One  had  already  sailed,  and  the  other  was  about 
to  embark,  when  the  new  resolutions  appeared 
in  the  "  Boston  Gazette."  Then  the  regiment 
was  detained  ;  for  the  government  felt  that  the 
declarations  were  more  pronounced  in  their  re- 


138  BAM U EL  ADAMS. 

bellious  tone  than  any  that  had  yet  been  made. 
At  this  the  Assembly  took  alarm,  and  although 
the  resolves  had  passed  in  a  full  house  unani 
mously,  one  hundred  and  nine  being  present, 
it  was  voted  to  modify  them.  This  was  done 
in  spite  of  the  more  zealous  spirits.  The  regi 
ment  then  departed,  leaving  behind  the  original 
force,  the  14th  and  29th,  which  were  now  fast 
nearing  an  hour  destined  to  bestow  upon  them 
a  somewhat  unenviable  immortality  in  the  his 
tory  of  America. 

Another  noteworthy  incident  in  this  animated 
session  was  the  demand  by  Bernard,  in  accord 
ance  with  the  terms  of  the  Billeting  Act,  by 
which  the  troops  had  been  quartered  on  the 
town,  of  a  sum  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the 
troops.  Samuel  Adams,  speaking  for  his  com 
mittee,  showed  at  length  the  conflict  of  the  de 
mand  with  the  chartered  rights  of  the  Province, 
ending  with  the  declaration  :  — 

"  Your  Excellency  must  therefore  excuse  us  iu  this 
express  declaration,  that  as  we  cannot  consistently 
with  our  honor  or  interest,  and  much  less  with  the 
duty  we  owe  our  constituents,  so  we  shall  never  make 
provision  for  the  purposes  in  your  several  messages 
above  mentioned." 

But  the  career  of  Francis  Bernard  in  Amer 
ica  had  now  reached  its  close.  The  petitions 
for  his  removal  that  had  been  sent  from  the 


THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD.       139 

Province  had  probably  little  effect  in  producing 
this  result  ;  but  the  mercnants  of  England, 
alarmed  at  the  non-importation  agreements  in 
the  colonies  and  selfishly  anxious  to  stem,  if 
possible,  the  disaffection  that  was  beginning  to 
tell  with  such  effect  on  their  pockets,  made  rep 
resentations  that  were  heeded.  While  retain 
ing  his  office,  he  was  summoned  to  England, 
ostensibly  to  help  the  government  with  infor 
mation  and  advice ;  and,  as  a  mark  of  the  ap 
proval  with  which  the  king  and  ministry  re 
garded  his  course,  he  was  made  a  baronet  under 
the  title  of  Sir  Francis  Bernard  of  Nettleham. 
His  demand  from  the  legislature  of  a  grant  for 
the  salary  during  the  year  to  come,  made  under 
instruction  from  the  king,  was  sufficiently  legal, 
inasmuch  as  he  remained  governor  and  was  to 
serve,  according  to  his  own  ideas,  the  interests 
of  the  Province.  Half  the  salary,  moreover, 
was  to  be  paid  to  the  lieutenant-governor.  But 
the  General  Court  scornfully  refused  the  de 
mand.  It  was  prorogued  early  in  July  "  to  the 
usual  time  for  its  meeting  for  the  winter  ses 
sion,"  and  on  the  last  day  of  the  month  Sir 
Francis  sailed  for  England.  The  day  of  his 
departure  was  made  a  public  gala-day.  Flags 
were  hoisted,  the  bells  sounded  from  the  stee 
ples,  cannon  roared  from  the  wharves,  and  on 
Fort  Hill  blazed  a  great  bonfire.  For  more 


140  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

than  a  year  he  retained  in  England  the  title  of 
governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  Samuel  Ad 
ams,  in  the  "  Boston  Gazette,"  May  1st,  thus 
mocked  the  outgoing  magistrate  :  — 

"Your  promotion,  sir,  reflects  an  honor  on  the 
Province  itself ;  an  honor  which  has  never  been  con- 
ferr'd  upon  it  since  the  thrice-happy  administration  of 
Sir  Edmond  Andross  of  precious  memory,  who  was 
also  a  baronet ;  nor  have  the  unremitted  Endeavors 
of  that  very  amiable  and  truly  patriotick  Gentleman 
to  render  the  most  substantial  and  lasting  services  to 
this  people,  upon  the  plan  of  a  wise  and  uncorrupt 

set  of  m rs,  been  ever  parallelled  till  since  you 

adorned  the  ch — r.  .  .  .  Pity  it  is  that  you  have  not 
a  pension  to  support  your  title.  But  an  Assembly 
well  chosen  may  supply  that  want  even  to  your  wish. 
Should  this  fail,  a  late  letter,  said  to  have  strongly 
recommended  a  tax  upon  the  improved  LANDS  of  the 
Colonies,  may  be  equally  successful  with  the  other 
letters  of  the  like  nature,  and  funds  sufficient  may  be 
rais'd  for  the  Use  and  Emolument  of  yourself  and 
friends,  without  a  Dependence  upon  a  '  military  estab 
lishment  supported  by  the  Province  at  Castle  Wil 
liam.' 

"I  am,  sir,  with  the  most  profound  respect,  and 
with  the  sincerest  Wishes  for  your  further  Exaltation, 
the  most  servile  of  all  your  tools.  A  TORY." 

Francis  Bernard  was  an  honorable  and  well- 
meaning  man,  and  by  no  means  wanting  in 
ability.  As  with  the  English  country  gen- 


THE  RECALL   OF  BERNARD.  141 

tlemen  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  general, 
the  traditions  of  English  freedom  had  become 
much  obscured  in  his  mind.  He  leaned  toward 
prerogative,  not  popular  liberty,  and  honestly 
felt  that  the  New  Englanders  were  disposed 
to  run  to  extremes  that  would  ruin  America 
and  injure  the  whole  empire.  Where  among 
the  rural  squires  or  the  Oxford  scholars  of  the 
time  can  be  found  any  who  took  a  different 
view?  This  being  his  position,  no  one  can 
deny  that  during  the  nine  years  of  his  incum 
bency  he  fought  his  difficult  fight  with  courage, 
persistency,  and  honesty.  He  leaned  as  far  as 
such  a  man  could  be  expected  to  lean  toward 
the  popular  side,  showing  wisdom  in  1763  and 
1764,  as  we  have  seen,  in  trying  to  procure  a 
lowering  or  abolition  of  the  duties  in  the  Sugar 
Act,  and  regarding  the  Stamp  Act  as  most  in 
expedient.  The  best  friends  of  America  in  Par 
liament,  like  Lord  Camden,  extolled  in  strong 
terms  his  character  and  good  judgment.  His 
refined  tastes  and  good  dispositions  were  shown 
in  his  interest  in  Harvard  College.  After  the 
fire  of  1764,  he  did  what  he  could  from  his  own 
library  to  make  good  the  loss  of  the  books 
which  had  been  burned ;  certainly  the  alumnus 
in  whose  youthful  associations  the  plain  but  not 
ungraceful  proportions  of  Harvard  Hall  have 
become  intimately  bound  may  have  a  kind 


142  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

thought  for  its  well-meaning  and  much  ma 
ligned  architect.  The  accusations  of  under 
hand  dealing  that  were  brought  against  him 
will  not  bear  examination. 

Bollan,  agent  in  England  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Council,  obtained  from  Beckford,  a  liberal 
member  of  Parliament,  copies  of  six  letters, 
written  by  Bernard  to  influence  parliamentary 
action  in  November  and  December,  1768.  The 
letters  contain  estimates  of  public  characters, 
an  account  of  events  in  Massachusetts,  and  pro 
posals  of  certain  changes  in  the  charter.  When 
sent  to  America  these  papers  aroused  great  in 
dignation.  They  were  felt  to  be  so  important 
that,  despite  Sabbatarian  scruples,  they  were 
considered  by  the  Council  on  Sunday.  The  ut 
most  wrath  was  poured  out  upon  their  author. 
Yet  really  the  letters  contain  nothing  more  than 
views  which  Bernard  had  made  no  secret  of. 
That  he  was  profoundly  dissatisfied  with  the 
constitution  of  the  colonies  and  desired  changes, 
every  one  knew.  What  opinion  he  had  of  his 
active  opponents  and  their  measures  was  no 
secret.  He  did  them  no  more  justice  than  they 
did  him.  The  changes  he  advocated  were  that 
the  provincial  governments  should  be  brought 
to  a  uniform  type  ;  the  Assemblies  he  would 
have  remain  popular,  as  before  ;  but  for  the 
Council,  or  upper  house,  he  recommended  a 


THE  RECALL  OF  BERNARD.       143 

body  made  up  of  a  kind  of  life  peers,  appointed 
directly  by  the  king.  He  recommended,  also, 
that  there  should  be  a  fixed  civil  list  from 
which  the  king's  officers  should  derive  a  certain 
provision,  declaring  that  in  the  existing  state 
of  things  it  was  impossible  to  enforce  in  the 
colonies  any  unpopular  law  or  punish  any  out 
rage  favored  by  the  people,  since  civil  officers 
were  mainly  dependent  on  annual  grants  from 
the  Assembly.  For  a  prerogative  man,  such 
views  were  not  unreasonable ;  certainly  Ber 
nard  had  made  no  pretense  of  holding  others. 
He  was,  however,  bitterly  denounced  and  in 
sulted. 

As  the  Baronet  of  Nettleham  was  borne  out 
to  sea  that  quiet  summer  evening,  amid  the  peal 
ing  bells,  the  salvos  of  cannon,  and  the  glare  of 
the  great  bonfire  on  Fort  Hill,  the  populace  of 
Boston,  as  it  were,  shouted  after  him  their  con 
tumely.  Fine  Shakespearean  scholar  that  he 
was,  one  may  well  believe  that  the  bitter  out 
bursts  of  Coriolanus  against  the  common  cry 
of  curs,  whose  breath  was  hateful  as  the^  reek 
of  rotten  fens,  rose  to  the  lips  of  the  aristocrat. 
Neither  side  could  do  justice  to  the  other.  The 
student  of  history  knows  well  that  mutual  jus 
tice  and  forbearance  are  in  such  cases  not  to  be 
expected.  They  were  the  fighters  in  a  fierce 
conflict,  and  of  necessity  bad  blood  was  engen- 


144  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

dered.  A  different  tone,  however,  may  be  de 
manded  at  the  present  time.  When  a  writer, 
after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  declares, 
"  He  displayed  his  malignity  to  the  last,  and 
having  done  his  best  to  ruin  the  Province,  and 
to  reap  all  possible  benefit  from  its  destruction, 
took  his  departure," l  one  feels  that  a  well-mean 
ing  man  is  pursued  quite  too  far,  and  the  desire 
for  fair  play  suggests  the  propriety  of  a  word 
or  two  in  his  favor. 

1  Wells,  S.  Adams,  I  266. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS. 

BERNARD  had  gone,  and  in  his  place  stood 
/Thomas  Hutchinson.  For  the  next  two  years 
he  remained  lieutenant-governor,  but  to  all  in 
tents  and  purposes  he  was  chief  magistrate, 
in  which  position  he  remained  until  the  king 
found  no  way  of  disentangling  the  ever-increas 
ing  perplexities  except  through  the  sword  of  a 
soldier.  Since  for  five  most  imporant  years 
the  figure  of  Hutchinson  is  to  be  scarcely  less 
prominent  in  our  story  than  that  of  Samuel 
Adams  himself,  the  main  facts  in  his  career 
hitherto  may  be  recapitulated,  that  the  char 
acter  may  be  fully  understood  with  which  now, 
in  the  summer  of  1769,  and  in  his  fifty-eighth 
year,  he  comes  into  the  foreground. 

Born  in  1711,  he  left  Harvard  in  1727,  and 
soon  made  some  trial  of  mercantile  life.  From 
a  line  of  famous  ancestors,  among  them  Mrs. 
Anne  Hutchinson,  that  strong  and  devout  spirit 
of  the  earliest  days  of  Boston,  he  had  inherited 
a  most  honorable  name  and  great  abilities.  He 
10 


146  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

was  a  Puritan  to  the  core  ;  Ms  wealth  was 
large,  his  manners  conciliated  for  him  the  good 
will  of  the  people,  which  for  a  long  time  he 
never  forfeited.  He  became  a  church  member 
at  twenty-four,  selectman  of  Boston  at  twenty- 
six,  and  at  thirty  was  sent  as  agent  of  the  Prov 
ince  to  London  on  important  business,  which  he 
managed  successfully.  For  ten  years  after  his 
return  he  was  representative,  during  three  of 
which  he  served  as  speaker.  In  particular,  he 
did  good  service  in  the  settlement  of  the  Prov 
ince  debt  in  1749.  For  sixteen  years  he  was  a 
member  of  the  Council,  and  while  in  the  Coun 
cil  he  became  judge  of  probate,  lieutenant-gov 
ernor,  and  chief  justice,  holding  all  these  posi 
tions  at  once.  It  is  shooting  quite  wide  of  the 
mark  to  base  any  accusation  of  self-seeking 
on  the  number  of  Hutchinson's  offices.  The 
emoluments  accruing  from  them  all  were  very 
small ;  in  some,  in  fact,  his  service  was  practi 
cally  gratuitous.  Nor  was  any  credit  or  fame 
he  was  likely  to  gain  from  holding  them  at  all 
to  be  weighed  against  the  labor  and  vexation 
to  be  undergone  in  discharging  their  functions. 
A  more  reasonable  explanation  of  his  readiness 
to  uphold  such  burdens  is  that  the  rich,  high- 
placed  citizen  was  full  of  public  spirit.  That 
he  performed  honorably  and  ably  the  work  of 
these  various  offices  there  is  no  contradicting 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION 

testimony.  As  a  legislator  no  one 
wiser.  As  judge  of  probate  he  had  always  be 
friended  widows  and  orphans.  As  chief  justice, 
though  not  bred  to  the  law,  he  had  been  an 
excellent  magistrate.  Besides  all  this,  he  had 
found  time  to  write  a  history  of  New  England, 
which  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  in 
teresting  and  important  literary  monuments  of 
the  colonial  period  —  a  work  digested  from  the 
most  copious  materials  with  excellent  judg 
ment,  and  presented  in  a  style  admirable  for 
dignity,  clearness,  and  scholarly  finish. 

Now  that  battle  was  joined  between  the  peo 
ple  and  the  prerogative  men,  he  had  taken 
sides  with  the  latter,  following  his  honest  opin 
ions,  and  keeping  his  head  cool  even  after  the 
exasperations  of  years  of  controversy.  On  the 
14th  of  February,  1772,  he  writes  :  — 

"  It  is  not  likely  that  the  American  colonies  will 
remain  part  of  the  dominion  of  Britain  another  cen 
tury,  but  while  they  do  remain,  the  supreme,  absolute 
legislative  power  must  remain  entire,  to  be  exercised 
upon  the  colonies  so  far  as  is  necessary  for  the  main 
tenance  of  its  own  authority  and  the  general  weal  of 
the  whole  empire,  and  no  farther."  * 

With  these  views  Hutchinson  comes  into  the 
leading  place  among  the  Tory  champions,  a 

1  From  Hutchinson's  autograph  letter  to  John  H.  Hutchin 
son,  Dublin,  in  Mass.  Archives. 


148  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

place  which  he   had   not   sought,  but   which, 
when  urged  upon  him,  he  did  not  refuse. 

As  Hutchinson  becomes  now  the  conspicu- 
/bus  figure  among  the  royalists,  Samuel  Adams 
stands  out  in  a  prominence  which  he  has  not 
before  possessed  in  the  camp  of  the  patriots. 
To  Bernard  "  he  was  one  of  the  principal  and 
most  desperate  chiefs  of  the  faction."  To 
Hutchinson,  however,  he  becomes  u  the  chief 
incendiary,"  the  "  all  in  all,"  the  "  instar  om 
nium"  "  the  master  of  the  puppets."  Whereas 
to  Bernard  Samuel  Adams  has  been  only  one 
among  several  of  evil  fame,  to  Hutchinson  he 
stands  like  Milton's  Satan  among  the  subor 
dinate  leaders  of  the  hellish  cohorts,  isolated 
in  a  baleful  supremacy.  This  new  eminence 
of  Samuel  Adams  is  mainly  due  to  an  event 
which  took  place  in  the  beginning  of  Septem 
ber.  James  Otis,  who  was  far  enough  from 
looking  forward  to  independence,  whose  favor 
ite  scheme,  as  we  have  seen,  was  an  American 
representation  in  Parliament,  and  who  with  all 
his  opposition  was  very  desirous  to  be  thought 
loyal,  felt  outraged  beyond  measure  at  the  re 
ports  of  seditious  conduct  on  his  part,  that  had 
been  made  in  letters  written  by  the  crown  offi 
cers  to  the  government  in  England.  While  in 
this  frame  of  mind,  he  met,  at  the  British  coffee 
house  in  King  Street,  Robinson,  one  of  the  com- 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS.    149 

missioners  of  customs,  who  was  there  in  com 
pany  with  officers  of  the  army  and  navy  and 
various  civil  dignitaries.  A  violent  altercation 
took  place  which  ended  in  a  fight,  in  the  course 
of  which  Otis  was  severely  cut  and  bruised,  his 
head  in  particular  receiving  ugly  wounds.  The 
proceeding  was  regarded  in  the  town  as  most 
cowardly  and  brutal,  since  Otis,  while  alone, 
was  set  upon  by  several  assailants.  The  hostile 
temper  of  the  people  was  greatly  incensed  by 
the  occurrence,  the  resentment  becoming  mixed 
with  passionate  grief  when  it  presently  ap 
peared  that  the  mind  of  the  popular  idol  had 
become  practically  wrecked  by  reason,  as  was 
generally  believed,  of  the  injuries  received. 

For  years  already  the  eccentricities  of  Otis, 
which  plainly  enough  indicate  a  certain  mor 
bidness  of  mind,  had  aroused  anxiety,  and  made  I 
him  sometimes  almost  unendurable  to  those  whoy 
were  forced  to  work  with  him.  When  Oxer/ 
bridge  Thacher,  the  admirable  man  whose  un 
timely  death  opened  the  way  for  Samuel  Adams 
to  enter  the  Assembly,  had  happened  to  think 
differently  from  Otis,  the  latter  had  treated 
him  in  so  overbearing  and  insolent  a  way  that 
he  was  obliged  to  call  on  the  speaker  of  the 
house  for  protection.  The  bar  were  sometimes 
all  up  in  arms  against  him  on  account  of  his  ar 
rogant  affronts.  Adams  usually  got  on  with  him 


150  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

better  than  others  did.  Gordon  says  that  "  Sam 
Adams  was  well  qualified  to  succeed  Thacher, 
and  learned  to  serve  his  own  views  by  using 
Otis's  influence."  The  old  historian  regards  it 
as  part  of  Samuel  Adams's  tact,  who,  he  says, 
"  acquired  great  ascendency  by  being  ready  to 
acquiesce  in  the  proposals  and  amendments  of 
others,  while  the  end  aimed  at  by  them  did  not 
eventually  frustrate  his  leading  designs.  He 
showed  in  smaller  matters  a  pliableness  and 
complaisance  which  enabled  him  at  last  to 
carry  those  of  much  greater  consequence." 

But  deft  though  he  was,  Adams  could  not  al 
ways  manage  Otis,  as  is  indicated  by  the  scene 
between  "  the  two  consuls  of  the  faction,"  of 
which  we  know  through  Bernard's  description, 
already  quoted.  At  the  time  of  the  violence, 
as  is  learned  from  John  Adams's  report,  Otis 
was  in  a  strange  frame  of  mind,  and  no  doubt 
comported  himself  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  the 

\  assault  upon  himself.  Although  the  abilities 
and  services  of  James  Otis  were  so  magnificent, 

)  contemporary  testimony  makes  it  plain  that  he 
must  often  have  been  a  source  of  great  embar- 

^Vassment  through  his  vacillations  and  infirmi 
ties.  That  his  motives  were  sometimes  far 
enough  from  being  the  highest  seems  probable. 
The  assertion  of  Hutchinson  that  his  opposition 
to  the  government  cause  was  due  to  wrath,  into 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS.    151 

which  he  fell  because  his  father  had  not  been 
made  chief  justice  in  1760,  would  not,  unsup 
ported,  be  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact.  Gor 
don,  however,  who  stood  with  the  patriots, 
makes  the  same  statement.  The  story  is  that 
Shirley  had  promised  the  place  to  the  elder 
Otis,  and  that  the  son  had  exclaimed:  "If 
Governor  Bernard  does  not  appoint  my  father 
judge  of  the  Superior  Court,  I  will  kindle  such 
a  fire  in  the  Province  as  shall  singe  the  gov 
ernor,  though  I  myself  perish  in  the  flames  ;  " 
and  that  his  resistance  to  the  government  be 
gan  at  the  appointment  of  Hutchinson  instead 
of  his  father.  John  Adams,  too,  touched  by  a 
slighting  remark  of  Otis,  and  dashing  down  an 
odd  outburst  of  testiness  in  his  diary,  hints  at 
much  self-seeking. 

From  1769,  Otis,  who  had  always  been  an 
uncomfortable  ally,  however  useful  at  times, 
became  simply  a  source  of  anxiety  and  embar 
rassment.  His  influence  with  the  people  yet 
remained  ;  by  fits  and  starts  his  old  eloquence 
still  flashed  forth,  and  town-meeting  and  As 
sembly,  which  he  had  so  often  made  to  thrill, 
were  slow  to  give  him  up.  It  required  all 
Samuel  Adams's  adroitness,  however,  to  hold 
his  crazy  associate  within  some  kind  of  limits, 
who  frequently,  as  we  shall  see,  put  things  in 
the  gravest  peril  in  spite  of  all  that  could  be 


152  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

/done.  With  Bernard  gone,  therefore,  and  Otis 
incapacitated,  Hutchinson  and  Samuel  Adams, 
in  the  deepening  strife,  confront  one  another, 
each  assisted  by,  but  quite  above,  his  fellow 
combatants,  fighters  well  worthy  of  one  another 

;'n  point  of  ability,  honesty,  and  courage. 
For  years  now  Samuel  Adams  had  laid  aside 
ill  pretense  of  private  business,  and  was  de- 
oted  simply  and  solely  to  public  affairs.  The 
Blouse  in  Purchase  Street  still  afforded  his  fam 
ily  a  home.  His  sole  source  of  income  was  the 
small  salary  he  received  as  clerk  of  the  Assem 
bly.  His  wife,  like  himself,  was  contented  with 
poverty ;  through  good  management,  in  spite 
of  their  narrow  means,  a  comfortable  home-life 
was  maintained  in  which  the  children  grew  up 
happy,  and  in  every  way  well-trained  and  cared 
for.  John  Adams  tells  of  a  drive  taken  by  these 
two  kinsmen,  on  a  beautiful  June  day  not  far 
from  this  time,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston. 
Then,  as  from  the  first  and  ever  after,  there 
was  an  affectionate  intimacy  between  them. 
They  often  called  one  another  brother,  though 
the  relationship  was  only  that  of  second  cousin. 
"My  brother,  Samuel  Adams,  says  he  never 
looked  forward  in  his  life  ;  never  planned,  laid 
a  scheme,  or  formed  a  design  of  laying  up  any 
thing  for  himself  or  others  after  him."  The 
case  of  Samuel  Adams  is  almost  without  par- 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS.    153 

allel  as  an  instance  of  enthusiastic,  unswerving 
devotion  to  the  public  service  throughout  a  long 
life.  His  pittance  scarcely  supplied  food,  and 
when  clothing  was  required,  as  we  shall  see,  it 
came  by  special  gift  from  his  friends.  Yet 
with  all  this,  according  to  the  confession  of  his 
enemies,  he  was  absolutely  incorruptible. 

Bernard  before  his  departure  had  written 
that  the  most  respectable  of  the  merchants 
would  not  hold  to  the  non-importation  agree 
ments,  and  British  merchants  accordingly  felt 
encouraged  to  send  cargoes  to  America.  On 
September  4  a  factor  arrived  in  charge  of  a 
large  consignment  of  goods.  The  town  was  ex 
pecting  him ;  Samuel  Adams,  in  the  "  Boston 
Gazette,"  had  prepared  the  public  mind.  At 
once  a  meeting  of  merchants  was  held  at  which 
the  factor  was  "  required  to  send  his  goods  back 
again."  At  a  town-meeting  held  on  the  same 
day  Samuel  Adams  with  others  was  appointed 
to  vindicate  the  town  from  the  false  representa 
tions  of  Bernard  and  other  officials,  and  the 
case  of  those  who  had  broken  the  non-importa 
tion  agreements  was  considered.  The  names 
of  four  merchants  were  placed  on  the  records 
as  infamous  ;  among  those  thus  gibbeted  were 
a  son  of  Bernard  and  the  two  sons  of  Hutchin- 
son,  with  whom  the  father  was  believed  by  the 
people  to  be  in  collusion.  Such  goods  as  had 


154  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

been  landed  were  housed,  and  the  key  was  kept 
by  a  committee  of  patriots.  The  troops  mean 
while  stood  idle  spectators,  for  no  act  could  be 
alleged  of  which  any  justice  of  the  peace  would 
take  notice,  although  the  temper  of  the  people 
was  so  plainly  hostile.  An  invitation  from 
New  York,  to  continue  the  non-importation 
agreement  until  all  the  revenue  acts  should  be 
repealed,  was  at  once  accepted  by  the  mer 
chants.  Hutchinson,  in  letters  to  Bernard, 
hopes,  consistently  enough,  "that  Parliament 
will  show  their  indignation.  ...  A  rigorous 
spirit  in  Parliament  will  yet  set  us  right ;  with 
out  it  the  government  of  this  Province  will  be 
split  into  innumerable  divisions." 

The  committee  chosen  to  defend  the  town 
from  the  aspersions  of  the  crown  officials  re 
ported  at  an  adjourned  meeting,  held  a  fort 
night  later,  an  address  written  by  Samuel 
Adams,  which  obtained  great  fame  under  the 
title,  "  An  Appeal  to  the  World."  It  occupies 
twenty-nine  pages  of  the  town-records,  and  was 
circulated  widely  in  America  and  also  in  Eng 
land,  where  it  was  republished.  In  the  case  of 
Wilkes  the  principle  of  representation  was  at 
this  time  undergoing  attack  in  England  as  well 
as  in  America,  and  there  were  many  who  read 
with  eagerness  the  Boston  statement.  Speak 
ing  of  Bernard,  the  appeal  declares  :  — 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS.    155 

"  He  always  discovered  an  aversion  to  free  assem 
blies  ;  no  wonder  then  that  he  should  be  so  particu 
larly  disgusted  at  a  legal  meeting  of  the  town  of  Bos 
ton,  where  a  noble  freedom  of  speech  is  ever  expected 
and  maintained;  an  assembly  of  which  it  may  be 
justly  said,  '  Sentire  quas  volunt  et  quae  sentiunt  di- 
cere  licet,'  —  they  think  as  they  please  and  speak  as 
they  think.  Such  an  assembly  has  ever  been  the 
dread,  often  the  scourge  of  tyrants." 

A  remarkable  forbearance,  one  is  forced  to 
admit,  characterizes  the  conduct  of  the  soldiers 
during  the  fall  and  winter  of  1769.  In  Octo 
ber  a  man  who  had  given  information  regard 
ing  certain  smuggled  wine,  which  had  arrived 
from  Rhode  Island,  was  tarred  and  feathered, 
carted  for  three  hours  through  the  streets,  and 
finally  made  to  swear  under  the  Liberty  Tree 
never  again  to  do  the  like.  John  Mein,  pub 
lisher  of  the  "  Chronicle,"  a  paper  which,  from 
having  been  neutral,  at  length  took  the  govern 
ment  side,  was  a  recent  Scotch  immigrant  of 
intelligence  and  enterprise.  His  advertisements 
as  a  bookseller  are  still  interesting  reading,  fill 
ing  as  they  do  whole  columns  of  the  news 
papers  with  lists  of  his  importations,  comprising 
the  best  books  in  that  day  published.  He  de 
serves  to  be  gratefully  remembered  also  as  the 
founder  in  Boston  of  circulating  libraries.  For 
ridiculing  certain  of  the  patriots  he  was  at- 


156  SAMUEL  ADAMS, 

tacked  and  goaded  into  firing  a  pistol  among 
the  crowd ;  he  was  forced  to  fly  to  the  main 
guard  for  protection,  whence  he  escaped  in  dis 
guise,  to  return  soon  after  to  England.  Diffi 
culty  was  experienced  in  maintaining  the  non 
importation  agreements.  Certain  merchants 
who  had  signed  them  reluctantly,  interpreting 
them  now  according  to  the  letter,  which  made 
them  expire  on  January  1,  1770,  at  once  threw 
off  restrictions  on  that  date  and  began  to  sell 
tea.  Among  these  were  the  sons  of  Hutchin- 
son,  who  were  upheld  by  their  father.  The  peo 
ple,  however,  had  a  different  understanding  of 
the  agreement.  The  restriction,  they  thought, 
must  remain  in  force  until  other  merchants 
could  import.  A  crowd  of  citizens,  merchants, 
justices  of  the  peace,  selectmen,  representatives, 
and  magistrates,  as  well  as  men  of  a  lower  de 
gree,  waited  upon  Hutchinson,  demanding  re 
dress.  Hutchinson  from  the  window  warned 
them  of  the  danger  of  their  illegal  and  riotous 
proceedings,  but  finally  succumbed  to  the  de 
mands  of  the  crowd,  a  course  which  he  later  re 
gretted.  "  Some  of  your  friends  and  mine,"  he 
afterward  wrote  to  a  royalist,  "  wish  matters 
had  gone  to  extremities,  this  being  as  good  a 
time  as  any  to  have  called  out  the  troops."  He 
felt  great  doubt  whether  he  was  competent,  as 
governor,  to  order  the  soldiers  to  fire,  as  appears 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS.     157 

from  his  diary,  a  doubt  shared  by  the  legal 
lights  in  England;  he  was  chief  magistrate, 
but  did  that  imply  the  powers  of  a  justice  of 
the  peace  ? 

The  same  method  seems  to  have  been  em 
ployed  or  at  least  threatened  by  the  people,  in 
other  cases,  and  to  have  been  much  dreaded. 
A  certain  Scotchman,  a  large  importer,  having 
been  remonstrated  with  and  proving  utterly 
contumacious,  Samuel  Adams  arose  in  the  meet 
ing  and  moved  grimly  that  the  crowd,  consist 
ing  of  two  thousand  people,  should  resolve  itself 
into  a  committee  of  the  whole  and  wait  upon 
him  to  urge  his  compliance  with  the  general 
wish.  Thereupon  the  Scotchman,  a  little  fel 
low  in  a  reddish,  smoke-dried  wig,  with  a  squeak 
ing  voice  and  a  roll  of  the  r's  like  a  well-played 
drum,  rushed  before  the  crowd  exclaiming: 
"  Mr.  Mode-r-r-rator,  I  agr-r-ree,  I  agr-r-ree !  " 
greatly  to  the  people's  amusement.  Samuel 
Adams  pointed  to  a  seat  near  himself  with  a 
polite,  condescending  bow  of  protection,  and  the 
frightened  man  was  quieted. 

It  had  been  intimated  from  England  that, 
since  the  government  had  become  convinced 
that  duties  like  those  of  the  Townshend  act  were 
not  consistent  with  the  laws  of  commerce,  the 
imposts  would  be  removed  from  glass,  paper,  and 
painters'  colors,  but  not,  as  we  have  seen,  from 


158  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

the  one  article,  tea.  The  people  were  not  con 
ciliated,  for  it  was  easy  to  see  that  in  retaining 
the  duty  upon  tea,  the  government  proposed  to 
cling  to  the  right  of  taxing  the  colonies.  This 
principle  the  colonists  were  just  as  determined 
to  repudiate,  and  therefore,  although  as  a  mat 
ter  of  dollars  and  cents  it  was  a  thing  of  tri 
fling  moment,  a  resistance  to  the  use  of  tea  from 
the  present  time  is  a  main  feature  of  the  dis 
turbance.  Tea  it  was  which  the  sons  of  Hutch- 
inson  were  anxious  to  bring  into  the  market 
at  the  expiration  of  the  non-importation  agree 
ments,  when  the  resistance  of  the  people  was 
so  determined.  It  was  voted  by  the  citizens 
soon  after  at  Faneuil  Hall  to  abstain  totally 
from  the  use  of  tea.  Since  the  men  were  less 
concerned  in  the  matter  than  the  women,  the 
mistresses  of  four  hundred  and  ten  families 
pledged  themselves  to  drink  no  more  tea  until 
the  revenue  act  was  repealed,  and  a  few  days 
later  one  hundred  and  twenty  young  ladies 
formed  a  similar  league. 

"  We,  the  daughters  of  those  patriots,"  said  they, 
"  who  have  and  do  now  appear  for  the  public  interest, 
and  in  that  principally  regard  their  posterity,  —  as 
such  do  with  pleasure  engage  with  them  in  denying 
ourselves  the  drinking  of  foreign  tea,  in  hope  to  frus 
trate  a  plan  which  tends  to  deprive  a  whole  com 
munity  of  all  that  is  valuable  in  life." 


THE  NON-IMPORTATION  AGREEMENTS.    159 

At  the  social  gatherings  the  void  created  by 
the  absence  of  the  popular  beverage  was  quite 
unfilled,  save  "by  the  rather  melancholy  notes 
of  the  spinnet. 

The  importers  had  no  peace.  They  were 
pointed  out  as  proscribed  men,  and  were  hooted 
at  by  boys  in  the  streets.  It  was  during  such 
a  disturbance  that,  on  the  22d  of  February,  the 
first  bloodshed  took  place  in  Boston,  in  a  con 
test  which  had  for  so  long  been  a  mere  war  of 
words.  A  crowd  of  boys,  engaged  in  torment 
ing  a  trader  who  had  made  himself  obnoxious 
by  selling  tea,  was  fired  into  by  a  partisan  of 
the  government.  One  boy  was  wounded,  and 
another,  Christopher  Snyder,  son  of  a  poor  Ger 
man,  was  killed.  An  immense  sensation  was 
created.  The  boy  who  was  slain  was  eleven 
years  old.  At  his  funeral  five  hundred  of  his 
schoolmates  walked  before  the  coffin,  and  a 
crowd  of  more  than  a  thousand  people  followed. 
The  procession  marched  from  the  Liberty  Tree 
to  the  town-house,  and  thence  to  the  burying- 
ground  on  the  Common.  The  man  who  had 
fired  the  shot  narrowly  escaped  being  torn  in 
pieces.  So  step  by  step  the  estrangement  in 
creased,  and  at  length  came  a  formidable  ex 
plosion. 


ti5 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE    SAM  ADAMS   REGIMENTS. 

As  the  spring  of  the  year  1770  appeared, 
the  14th  and  29th  regiments  had  been  in  Bos 
ton  about  seventeen  months.  The  14th  was  in 
barracks  near  the  Brattle  Street  Church  ;  the 
29th  was  quartered  just  south  of  King  Street ; 
about  midway  between  them,  in  King  Street, 
and  close  at  hand  to  the  town-house,  was  the 
main  guard,  whose  nearness  to  the  public  build 
ing  had  been  a  subject  of  great  annoyance  to 
the  people.  During  a  period  when  the  legis 
lature  was  not  in  session  a  body  of  troops  had 
occupied  the  unused  representatives'  chamber. 
James  Otis  had  characteristically  given  voice 
to  the  general  aversion  at  this  time.  At  a 
meeting  of  the  Superior  Court  in  the  council 
chamber  he  moved  an  adjournment  to  Faneuil 
Hall,  saying,  with  a  gesture  of  contempt  and 
loathing,  "that  the  stench  occasioned  by  the 
troops  in  the  representatives'  chamber  might 
prove  infectious,  and  that  it  was  utterly  derog 
atory  to  the  court  to  administer  justice  at  the 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  JtEGIMENTS.  161 

points  of  bayonets  and  the  mouths  of  cannon." 
During  their  Boston  sojourn  the  troops  were 
carefully  drilled.  John  Adams,  whose  house 
was  near  the  barracks  of  the  14th,  has  left  a 
description  of  the  music  and  exercises  to  which 
he  and  his  family  were  constantly  treated. 
One  is  forced  to  admit,  also,  that  a  good  degree 
of  discipline  was  maintained ;  no  blood  had  as 
yet  been  shed  by  the  soldiers,  although  provo 
cations  were  constant,  the  rude  element  in  the 
town  growing  gradually  more  aggressive  as  the 
soldiers  were  never  allowed  to  use  their  arms. 
Insults  and  blows  with  fists  were  frequently 
taken  and  given,  and  cudgels  also  came  into 
fashion  in  the  brawls.  Whatever  awe  the  reg 
iments  had  inspired  at  their  first  coming  had 
long  worn  off.  In  particular  the  workmen  of 
the  rope-walks  and  ship-yards  allowed  their 
tongues  the  largest  license,  and  were  foremost 
in  the  encounters. 

About  the  1st  of  March  fights  of  unusual 
bitterness  had  occurred  near  Grey's  rope-walk, 
not  far  from  the  quarters  of  the  29th,  between 
the  hands  of  the  rope-walk  and  soldiers  of  that 
regiment,  which  had  a  particularly  bad  reputa 
tion.  The  soldiers  had  got  the  worst  of  it,  and 
were  much  irritated.  Threats  of  revenge  had 
been  made,  which  had  called  out  arrogant  re 
plies,  and  signs  abounded  that  serious  trouble 


lo 

11 


162  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

was  not  far  off.  From  an  early  hour  on  the 
evening  of  the  5th  of  March  the  symptoms 
were  very  ominous.  There  was  trouble  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  14th  regiment,  which  was 
stopped  by  a  sudden  order  to  the  soldiers  to 
go  into  their  barracks.  A  crowd  of  towns 
people  remained  in  Dock  Square,  where  they 
listened  to  an  harangue  from  a  certain  myste 
rious  stranger  in  a  long  cloak,  who  has  never 
been  identified.  An  alarm  was  rung  from  one 
of  the  steeples,  which  called  out  many  from 
their  houses  under  the  impression  that  there- 
was  a  fire.  At  length  an  altercation  began  in 
King  Street  between  a  company  of  lawless 
boys  and  a  few  older  brawlers  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  sentinel,  who  paced  his  beat  before  the 
custom-house,  on  the  other.  Somewhat  earlier 
in  the  evening  the  sentry  had  pushed  or  struck 
lightly  with  his  musket  a  barbef-'s  apprentice, 
who  had  spoken  insolently  to  a  captain  of  the 
14th  as  he  passed  along  the  street.  The  boy 
was  now  in  the  crowd,  and  pointing  out  the 
sentry  as  his  assailant,  began  with  his  compan 
ions  to  press  upon  him,  upon  which  the  soldier 
retreated  up  the  steps  of  the  custom-house,  and 
called  out  for  help.  A  file  of  soldiers  was  at 
once  dispatched  from  the  main  guard,  across 
the  street,  by  Captain  Preston,  officer  of  the 
guard,  who  himself  soon  followed  to  the  scene 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.      163 

of  trouble.  A  coating  of  ice  covered  the  ground, 
upon  which  shortly  before  had  fallen  a  light 
snow.  A  young  moon  was  shining  ;  the  whole 
transaction,  therefore,  was  plainly  visible.  The 
soldiers,  with  the  sentinel,  nine  in  number,  drew 
up  in  line  before  the  people,  who  greatly  out 
numbered  them.  The  pieces  we're  loaded  and 
held  ready,  but  the  mob,  believing  that  the 
troops  would  not  use  their  arms  except  upon 
requisition  of  a  civil  magistrate,  shouted  coarse 
insults,  pressed  upon  the  very  muzzles  of  the 
pieces,  struck  them  with  sticks,  and  assaulted 
the  soldiers  with  balls  of  ice. 

In  the  tumult  precisely  what  was  said  and 
done  cannot  be  known.  Many  affidavits  were 
taken  in  the  investigation  that  followed,  and, 
as  always  at  such  times,  the  testimony  was 
most  contradictory.  Henry  Knox,  afterwards 
the  artillery  general,  at  this  time  a  bookseller, 
was  on  the  spot  and  used  his  influence  with 
Preston  to  prevent  a  command  to  fire.  Pres 
ton  declared  that  he  never  gave  the  command. 
The  air,  however,  was  full  of  shouts,  daring 
the  soldiers  to  fire,  some  of  which  may  have 
been  easily  understood  as  commands,  and  at 
last  the  discharge  came.  If  it  had  failed  to 
come,  indeed,  the  forbearance  would  have  been 
quite  miraculous.  Three  were  killed  outright, 
and  eight  wounded,  only  one  of  whom,  Crispus 


164  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

Attacks,  a  tall  mulatto  who  faced  the  soldiers, 
leaning  on  a  stick  of  cord- wood,  had  really  taken 
any  part  in  the  disturbance.  The  rest  were  by 
standers  or  were  hurrying  into  the  street,  not 
knowing  the  cause  of  the  tumult.  A  placid 
citizen,  standing  in  his  doorway  on  the  corner 
of  King  and  Congress  Streets,  was  struck  by 
two  balls  in  the  arm,  upon  which,  says  tradi 
tion,  he  turned  about  and  quietly  remarked,  "  I 
declare,  I  do  think  these  soldiers  ought  to  be 
talked  to."  A  wild  confusion,  with  which  this 
curious  little  spill  of  milk  and  water  was  in 
strong  enough  contrast,  took  possession  of  the 
town.  The  alarm-bells  rang  frantically  ;  on  the 
other  hand  the  drums  of  the  regiments  thun 
dered  to  arms.  The  people  flocked  to  King 
Street,  where  the  victims  lay  weltering,  the 
whiteness  of  the  ground  under  the  moon  giving 
more  ghastly  emphasis  to  the  crimson  horror. 
The  companies  of  the  29th  regiment,  forming 
rapidly,  marched  to  the  same  spot,  upon  which, 
with  steady  discipline,  they  kneeled  in  obedi 
ence  to  command,  prepared  for  street-firing. 
The  14th  meanwhile  stood  ready  in  their  bar 
racks.  "  The  soldiers  are  rising.  To  arms  ! 
to  arms !  Town-born,  turn  out,"  were  the 
wild  cries  with  which  the  air  was  filled. 

What  averted  a  fearful  battle  in  the  streets 
was  the  excellent  conduct  of  Hutchinson.     He 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  165 

had  supposed  at  first  that  the  confusion  was 
due  to  an  alarm  of  fire,  but  was  presently  called 
out  by  people  running  from  King  Street,  with 
the  tidings  that  he  must  appear,  or  the  town 
would  soon  be  all  in  blood.  Making  his  way 
to  Dock  Square,  he  could  produce  no  impres 
sion  upon  the  confusion.  He  avoided  the 
crowd  by  entering  a  house,  and  by  a  private 
way  at  length  reached  the  custom-house.  His 
first  act  was  to  take  Preston  sharply  to  task. 

"  Are  you  the  commanding  officer  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Do  you  know,  sir,  you  have  no  power  to 
fire  on  any  body  of  people  collected  together, 
except  you  have  a  civil  magistrate  with  you  to 
give  orders?" 

"  I  was  obliged  to,  to  save  the  sentry." 

As  a  catastrophe  seemed  imminent,  the  lieu 
tenant-governor  made  his  way  as  quickly  as 
possible  to  the  council-chamber,  from  the  bal 
cony  of  which  facing  eastward  down  King 
Street,  with  the  soldiers  in  their  ranks,  the  an 
gry  people  and  the  bloody  snow  directly  be 
neath  him,  he  made  a  cool  and  wise  address. 
He  expressed  heart-felt  regret  at  the  occur 
rence,  promised  solemnly  that  justice  should  be 
done,  besought  the  people  to  return  to  their 
homes,  and  desired  the  lieutenant-colonels  who 
stood  at  his  side  to  send  the  troops  to  their 


166  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

quarters.  "  The  law,"  he  declared,  "  should 
have  its  course.  He  would  live  and  die  by  the 
law." 

The  officers,  descending  to  their  commands, 
gave  orders  to  the  troops  to  shoulder  arms  and 
return  to  their  barracks.  No  opposition  was 
made  to  the  arrest  of  Captain  Preston  and  the 
nine  soldiers  who  had  been  concerned  in  the 
firing,  which  was  presently  effected.  The 
crowd  gradually  fell  away,  leaving  about  a  hun 
dred  to  attend  the  investigation,  which  at  once 
began  under  Hutchinson's  eye,  and  continued 
until  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  In  good 
season  the  next  forenoon,  Hutchinson,  sitting 
in  the  council  chamber,  with  such  members  of 
the  Council  as  could  be  assembled,  was  waited 
upon  by  the  selectmen  of  Boston  and  most  of 
the  justices  of  the  county,  who  told  him  that 
townspeople  and  troops  could  no  longer  live 
together,  and  that  the  latter  must  depart. 
Hutchinson  alleged,  as  he  had  done  before,  that 
the  troops  were  not  under  his  command,  and 
while  the  interview  went  forward  the  select 
men  were  peremptorily  summoned  elsewhere. 
To  Faneuil  Hall  the  people  had  flocked  be 
times,  the  number  of  the  townsmen  swelled  by 
crowds  who  poured  in  from  the  country.  Wil 
liam  Cooper,  the  town  clerk,  acted  as  chairman 
at  first.  When  presently  the  selectmen  ap- 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.      167 

peared,  and  things  took  on  a  more  formal  shape, 
Thomas  Gushing  became  moderator,  and  Dr. 
Cooper,  of  the  church  in  Brattle  Street,  by  in 
vitation  of   the  multitude,  offered   an  earnest 
prayer.     Depositions  were  then  taken,  graphic 
statements  of  facts  connected  with  the  Massa 
cre,  by  various  eye-witnesses,  and  then  at  length 
Samuel  Adams  addressed  the  meeting.     What 
he  said  must  be  inferred  from  the  action  which 
the  meeting  immediately  took.     A  committee 
of  fifteen  was  appointed,  among  them  Samuel 
Adams,  although  he  was  not  at  the  head  of  it, 
who  were  instructed  to  wait  upon  Hutchinson 
to  demand  the  instant  removal  of  the  troops. 
Measures  were  then   taken  for  a  town-meeting 
in  regular  form  at  three  o'clock  in  the  after 
noon,  the  selectmen  preparing,  and  the  consta 
bles  posting  the  warrants.     While  the  people 
dispersed,  the  committee  proceeded  to  discharge 
their  duty  that  they  might  be  ready  to  report 
in  the  afternoon.     Their  spokesman  announced 
to  Hutchinson  that  it  was  the  determination 
of  Boston  and  all  the  country  round  that  the 
troops  should  be  removed.  According  to  Hutch- 
inson's  own  account,  when  he,  with  his  Council 
and  the  officers  of   the  army  and  navy  stood 
face  to  face  with  the  committee  of  fifteen,  he 
reiterated  his  declaration  that  he  had  no  au 
thority  to  remove  the  troops.     The  committee, 


168  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

dissatisfied,   waited    after  tlie   interview  in  a 
room  adjoining  the  council  chamber. 

At  three  o'clock  the  town-meeting  assembled 
in  regular  form  at  Faneuil  Hall,  but  the  mul 
titude,  swollen  by  the  people  of  the  surrounding 
towns,  became  so  vast  that  they  adjourned  to 
the  Old  South.  As  Hutchinson  sat  deliberating 
with  the  Council  and  crown  officers,  the  crowd 
swept  past  the  town-house,  over  the  snow  still 
crimson  with  the  Massacre.  How  they  looked 
as  they  moved  past,  now  in  groups,  now  singly, 
now  in  a  numerous  throng,  we  may  get  through 
side-lights.  It  was  a  disorderly  mob  which  the 
evening  before  had  pressed  upon  the  soldiers. 
But  now  said  a  member  of  the  Council  to  Hutch 
inson,  as  they  looked  from  the  windows  down 
upon  the  street :  "  This  multitude  are  not  such 
as  pulled  down  your  house ;  but  they  are  men 
of  the  best  characters,  men  of  estates,  and  men 
of  religion  ;  men  who  pray  over  what  they  do." 
And  Hutchinson  himself  declares,  that  they 
were  "  warmed  with  a  persuasion  that  what 
they  were  doing  was  right,  that  they  were 
struggling  for  the  liberties  of  America,"  and 
he  judged  "  their  spirit  to  be  as  high  as  was  the 
spirit  of  their  ancestors  when  they  imprisoned 
Andros,  while  they  were  four  times  as  numer 
ous."  It  must  be  owned  that  there  is  a  tone  of 
candor  in  these  expressions  ;  nevertheless,  it 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  169 

was  the  view  of  Hutch inson  that  the  demand 
of  the  people  for  the  removal  of  the  regiments 
ought  to  be  resisted,  and  he  has  recorded  that 
it  was  not  he  who  yielded.  Colonel  Dalrymple, 
of  the  14th  regiment,  the  ranking  officer,  had 
indicated  that  as  the  first  intention  had  been  to 
station  the  29th  at  the  Castle,  though  he  could 
receive  an  order  from  no  one  but  Gage,  he 
would  respect  the  expression  of  a  desire  from 
the  magistrates,  and  would,  if  it  were  thought 
best,  send  the  29th  to  the  Castle.  The  town's 
committee  were  informed  of  this,  Hutchinson 
declaring  that  he  would  receive  no  further  com 
munication  on  the  subject.  The  Council,  how 
ever,  with  Dalrymple,  induced  him  to  meet 
them  again  for  further  deliberation. 

Issuing,  as  we  may  suppose,  from  the  south 
ern  door,  the  committee  of  fifteen  appeared 
upon  the  steps  of  the  Old  State  House,  on  their 
way  to  the  Old  South  to  make  their  report, 
Samuel  Adams  at  their  head.  The  crowd  had 
overflowed  from  the  church  into  the  street,  and 
the  cry  went  before,  "  Make  way  for  the  com 
mittee."  Samuel  Adams  bared  his  head :  he  was 
but  forty-eight,  but  his  hair  was  already  so  gray 
as  to  give  him  a  venerable  look.  He  inclined 
to  the  right  and  left,  as  they  went  through  the 
lines  of  men,  saying  as  he  did  so  :  "  Both  regi 
ments  or  none  !  "  "  Both  regiments  or  none  !  " 


170  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Densely  as  they  could  be  packed,  the  floor  and 
the  double  range  of  galleries  in  the  Old  South 
were  filled  with  the  town-meeting,  the  crowd 
in  the  street  pushing  in  on  the  backs  of  those 
already  in  place,  till  stairs,  aisles,  and  windows 
were  one  mass  of  eager  faces.  The  reply  of 
the  lieutenant-governor  was  rendered  in  this 
presence,  —  namely,  that  the  commander  of 
the  two  regiments  received  orders  only  from 
the  general  in  New  York,  but  that  at  the  de 
sire  of  the  civil  magistrates,  the  29th,  because 
of  the  part  it  had  played  in  the  disturbance, 
should  be  sent  to  the  Castle,  and  also  that  the 
position  of  the  main  guard  should  be  changed  ; 
the  14th,  however,  must  remain  in  the  town, 
but  should  be  so  far  restrained  as  to  remove  all 
danger  of  further  differences.  But  now  re 
sounded  through  the  building  the  cry,  "  Both 
regiments  or  none  !  "  from  the  floor,  from  the 
galleries,  from  the  street  outside,  where  men 
on  tip-toe  strove  to  get  a  view  of  proceedings 
within.  "  Both  regiments  or  none  !  "  and  it  be 
came  plain  what  the  leader  had  meant,  as  he 
spoke  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  a  moment  be 
fore,  while  the  committee  had  proceeded  from 
the  council  chamber  to  the  town-meeting.  The 
watch- word  had  been  caught  up  as  it  was  sug 
gested  ;  and  now  with  small  delay  a  new  com 
mittee,  this  time  consisting  of  seven,  upon  which 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  171 

the  town  took  more  care  than  ever  to  put  the 
best  men,  was  sent  back  to  the  governor. 

Of  the  committee,  Hancock,  Henshaw,  and 
Pemberton  had  wealth,  ability,  and  worth,  and 
were  moreover  selectmen ;  Phillips  was  a  mer 
chant,  generous  and  respected ;  Molineux,  too, 
was  a  merchant,  a  man  of  much  executive  force, 
but  more  valued  perhaps  in  action  than  in  coun 
sel,  while  Joseph  Warren,  the  physician,  im 
petuously  eloquent,  had  for  some  years  been 
pushing  always  higher.  On  the  list  of  the 
committee,  while  Hancock  is  first,  Samuel  Ad 
ams  comes  second.  Probably  the  rich  luxu 
rious  chairman  did  not  forget,  even  on  an  oc 
casion  like  this,  to  set  off  his  fine  figure  with 
gay  velvet  and  lace,  and  a  gold-headed  cane. 
About  four  o'clock  that  afternoon,  the  6th  of 
March,  the  new  committee  entered  the  council 
chamber ;  and  now  as  the  power  of  the  people 
and  the  power  of  the  government,  like  two 
great  hulls  in  a  sea-fight,  are  about  to  crash 
together,  in  the  moment  of  collision,  on  the 
side  of  the  Province  the  gilded  figure-head  is 
taken  in  and  "  a  wedge  of  steel " 1  is  thrust 
forth  in  front  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  impact. 

1  John  Adams,  who  found  the  legitimate  resources  of  rhetoric 
quite  inadequate  for  the  expression  of  his  admiration  for  his 
kinsman,  says  Sam  Adams  was  "  born  and  tempered  a  wedge 
of  steel  to  split  the  knot  of  lignum  vitce  that  tied  America  to 
England." 


172  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Hancock  disappears  from  the  fore,  and  Samuel 
Adams  stands  out  to  take  the  shock  !  Day  was 
already  waning,  and  we  may  fancy  the  council 
chamber  lighting  up  with  a  ruddy  glow  from 
the  open  fire-places.  John  Adams  long  after 
suggested  the  scene  that  took  place  as  a  fit 
subject  for  a  historical  painting. 

"  Now  for  the  picture.  The  theatre  and  the  scenery 
are  the  same  with  those  at  the  discussion  of  the  writs 
of  assistance.  The  same  glorious  portraits  of  King 
Charles  the  Second,  and  King  James  the  Second,  to 
which  might  be  added,  and  should  be  added,  little 
miserable  likenesses  of  Governor  Winthrop,  Governor 
Bradstreet,  Governor  Endicott,  and  Governor  Belcher, 
hung  up  in  obscure  corners  of  the  room.  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor  Hutchinson,  commander-in-chief  in 
the  absence  of  the  governor,  must  be  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  council-table.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Dal- 
rymple,  commander-in-chief  of  his  majesty's  mili 
tary  forces,  taking  rank  of  all  his  majesty's  council 
lors,  must  be  seated  by  the  side  of  the  lieutenant- 
governor  and  commander-in-chief  of  the  Province. 
Eight-and-twenty  councillors  must  be  painted,  all 
seated  at  the  council-board.  Let  me  see,  —  what 
costume  ?  What  was  the  fashion  of  that  day  in  the 
month  of  March  ?  Large  white  wigs,  English  scarlet- 
cloth  coats,  some  of  them  with  gold-laced  hats ;  not 
on  their  heads  indeed  in  so  august  a  presence,  but  on 
the  table  before  them  or  under  the  table  beneath 
them.  Before  these  illustrious  personages  appeared 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  173 

SAMUEL  ADAMS,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  and  their  clerk,  now  at  the  head  of  the 
committee  of  the  great  assembly  at  the  Old  South 
Church." 

Adams  spoke  in  his  straightforward,  earnest 
way,  asserting  the  illegality  of  quartering  troops 
on  the  town  in  time  of  peace  without  the  con 
sent  of  the  legislature ;  he  described  the  trouble 
that  must  come  if  the  troops  remained,  and 
urged  the  necessity  of  compliance  with  the  de 
mand  of  the  town.  Gordon  says  that  the  pe 
culiar  nervous  trembling,  of  which  he  was  the 
subject,  communicated  itself  as  he  spoke  to 
Colonel  Dalrymple.  Hutchinson  showed  no  ir 
resolution.  He  briefly  defended  both  the  legal 
ity  and  the  necessity  of  the  presence  of  the 
troops,  and  declared  once  more  that  they  were 
not  subject  to  his  authority.  Samuel  Adams 
once  more  stood  forth  :  — 


x; 


It  is  well  known,"  he  said,  "  that  acting  as  gov 
ernor  of  the  Province,  you  are  by  its  charter  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  military  forces  within  it ; 
and  as  such,  the  troops  now  in  the  capital  are  subject 
to  your  orders.  If  you,  or  Colonel  Dalrymple  under 
you,  have  the  power  to  remove  one  regiment,  you 
have  the  power  to  remove  both  ;  and  nothing  short 
of  their  total  removal  will  satisfy  the  people  or  pre 
serve  the  peace  of  the  Province.  A  multitude  highly 
incensed  now  wait  the  result  of  this  application.  The 


174  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

voice  of  ten  thousand  freemen  demands  that  both 
regiments  be  forthwith  removed.  Their  voice  must 
be  respected,  their  demand  obeyed.  Fail  not  then  at 
your  peril  to  comply  with  this  requisition  !  On  you 
alone  rests  the  responsibility  of  this  decision  ;  and  if 
the  just  expectations  of  the  people  are  disappointed, 
you  must  be  answerable  to  God  and  your  country  for 
the  fatal  consequences  that  must  ensue.  The  com 
mittee  have  discharged  their  duty,  and  it  is  for  you 
to  discharge  yours.  They  wait  your  final  determina 
tion." 

A  long  discussion  now  took  place,  in  which 
Hutcbinson  appears  to  have  stood  alone  in  his 
wish  to  continue  to  oppose  the  town.  His  be 
lief,  he  says,  was  that  if  officers  and  Council  had 
supported  him  in  the  beginning  in  the  firm  as 
sertion  that  the  troops  could  not  be  removed 
without  the  orders  of  Gage,  the  people  could 
have  been  put  off.  The  Council,  however, 
yielded ;  the  colonels,  too,  gave  way,  Dalrym- 
ple  at  last  signifying  his  readiness  to  remove 
the  14th  as  well  as  the  29th.  The  position  of 
affairs  remained  no  secret.  The  people  were 
promptly  informed  that  the  governor  stood 
alone.  At  length  Andrew  Oliver,  the  sec 
retary,  upon  whom  Hutchinson  much  relied, 
who  had  at  first  advised  resistance,  declared 
that  it  could  go  no  farther,  that  the  governor 
must  give  way  or  instantly  leave  the  Province. 


THE  SA^1  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  175 

At  last,  therefore,  the  formal  recommendation 
came  from  him  to  Dairy m pie  to  remove  the 
troops.  The  soldier's  word  of  honor  was  given 
that  it  should  be  done  at  once,  and  at  dark  the 
committee  carried  back  to  the  meeting  the 
news  of  success,  upon  which,  so  say  the  rec 
ords,  "  the  inhabitants  could  not  but  express 
the  high  satisfaction  which  it  afforded  them." 

A  week  was  required  for  the  transportation 
of  the  troops  and  their  baggage,  during  which 
the  town,  dissatisfied  with  what  appeared  like 
unnecessary  delay,  remonstrated  through  the 
same  committee  of  seven.  A  night-watch  dur 
ing  this  time  continued  in  organization,  under 
the  same  committee.  Says  John  Adams :  — 

"  Military  watches  and  guards  were  everywhere 
placed.  We  were  all  upon  a  level ;  no  man  was  ex 
empted  ;  our  military  officers  were  our  superiors.  I 
had  the  honor  to  be  summoned  in  my  turn,  and  at 
tended  at  the  State  House  with  my  musket  and  bay 
onet,  my  broadsword  and  cartridge-box,  under  the 
command  of  the  famous  Paddock." 

During  this  week  occurred  the  funeral  of  the 
victims  of  the  Massacre,  which  took  place  under 
circumstances  of  the  greatest  solemnity.  Four 
hearses,  for  one  of  the  wounded  had  meantime 
died,  containing  the  bodies,  and  coming  from 
different  directions,  met  upon  the  spot  in  King 
Street  in  which  the  victims  had  fallen.  The 


176  SAMUEL  ADA\ 

assemblage  was  such  as  had  never  before  been 
known  ;  the  bells  of  Boston  and  the  whole  neigh 
borhood  tolled,  and  a  great  procession,  march 
ing  in  ranks  of  six  abreast,  followed  to  the 
Granary  Burying  Ground,  where  the  bodies 
were  laid  in  a  common  grave  near  the  north 
east  corner.  There  they  rest  to  this  day.  In 
England  the  affair  was  regarded  as  a  "  success 
ful  bully "  of  the  whole  power  of  the  govern 
ment  by  the  little  town,  and  when  Lord  North 
received  details  of  these  events  he  always  af 
terward  referred  to  the  14th  and  29th  as  the 
"  Sam  Adams  regiments." 

From  that  day  to  this,  both  in  England  and 
America,  it  has  been  held  that  there  was  a 
great  exhibition  of  weakness,  if  not  actual  pol 
troonery,  on  the  part  of  the  civil  and  military 
officers  of  the  government  in  this  conflict  with 
the  town  of  Boston.  The  idea  is  quite  wrong. 
Hutchinson,  so  far  from  showing  any  weakness, 
was  resolute  even  to  rashness.  Loving  his  coun 
try  truly,  honestly  believing  that  Parliament 
must  be  supreme  over  tfye  provincial  legisla 
ture,  and  that  the  people  would  acquiesce  in 
such  supremacy  if  only  a  few  headstrong  lead 
ers  could  be  set  aside,  he  was  in  a  position  as 
chief  magistrate  which  he  had  not  sought. 
Now  that  he  was  in  it,  however,  he  pursued 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  177 

the  course  which  seemed  to  him  proper,  sad 
dened  though  he  must  have  been  by  the  unpop- 
larity,  fast  deepening  into  hatred,  of  which  he 
had  become  the  subject.  To  uphold  the  gov 
ernment  cause,  the  presence  of  the  troops  was, 
in  his  view,  indispensable.  The  taxes  imposed 
by  Parliament  there  could  be  no  hope  of  col 
lecting  in  the  misled  Province  except  with  the 
support  of  bayonets.  Upon  what  could  his 
own  authority  rest,  with  Council  and  Assembly 
in  vast  proportion  hostile,  if  the  troops  were 
removed?  He  had  avoided  occasions  of  con 
flict,  as  he  had  reason  to  feel,  with  much  for 
bearance.  The  Massacre  of  the  5th  of  March 
he  deeply  regretted  ;  he  was  determined  to 
have  justice  done.  But  when  the  peremptory 
demand  came  from  the  town  for  the  removal  of 
the  regiments,  then  he  felt  it  right  to  remain 
passive ;  he  thought  he  had  no  power  in  the 
matter.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  his  own 
representation,  made  in  private  letters,1  in  his 
history,2  in  his  private  diary3  now  just  come  to 
light,  that  he  would  not  have  yielded  but  for 
the  course  pursued  by  those  about  him,  whose 
support  he  could  not  do  without.  Possibly  he 
was  right  in  thinking  that  a  firm  front  shown 
from  the  first  by  the  crown  officers  would  have 

1  To  Bernard,  March  18,  1770.  2  £fist.  ft.  275. 

8  Diary,  79,  80. 
12 


178  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

won  over  the  people  in  spite  of  the  machina 
tions  of  the  "  faction."  All  men  about  the 
governor,  however,  were  at  last  for  yielding, 
and  the  people  knew  it,  and  were  encouraged 
by  it  in  their  own  course.  In  the  "  Diary," 
where  he  expresses  himself  with  more  freedom 
than  elsewhere,  Hutchinson  charges  Dalrym- 
ple  with  being  especially  responsible  for  the 
result :  — 

"  Colonel  Dalrymple  offered  to  remove  one  regi 
ment,  to  which  the  soldiers  on  guard  belonged.  This 
was  giving  up  the  point.  .  .  .  The  regiments  were 
removed.  He  was  much  distressed,  but  he  brought  it 
all  upon  himself  by  his  offer  to  remove  one  of  the 
regiments." 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  regard  Dalrymple  as  a 
coward.  His  character  as  a  brave  and  prudent 
soldier  is  certified  to  in  the  strongest  terms  by 
the  famous  Admiral  Hood,  shortly  before  the 
commodore  on  the  Boston  station.  The  regi 
ments  together  numbered  scarcely  six  hundred 
effective  men.  Boston  was  evidently  sustained 
by  the  country.  What  could  six  hundred  men 
do  against  a  populous  Province  ?  It  was,  no 
doubt,  a  stretch  of  authority  to  order  the  troops 
away,  but  a  prudent  soldier  may  well  have  felt 
that  the  circumstances  justified  it.  He  took  the 
responsibility,  and  although  the  mortification 
which  the  act  caused  in  England  was  so  great, 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.      179 

it  is  to  be  noticed  that  he  never  received  any 
censure  for  it. 

But  while  we  try  to  do  justice  to  men  who 
have  received  contemptuous  treatment  for  a 
hundred  years,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  their 
mistake.  Hutchinson's  conduct  was  manful 
and  consistent  with  his  views.  He  ought,  how 
ever,  to  have  had  better  views.  Out  of  the 
best  strain  of  New  England  as  he  was,  sprung 
from  liberty-loving  sires  and  trained  in  the 
folk-mote,  what  business  had  he  to  stand  there 
for  arbitrary  power  against  government  of  the 
people,  by  and  for  the  people  ?  It  was  a  posi 
tion  in  which  such  a  man  should  never  have 
been  found.  And  now  let  us  look  at  the  great 
contrasting  figure.  In  the  scenes  we  have  been 
contemplating,  the  two  men  stand  over  against 
one  another  in  a  definite  opposition  and  prom 
inence  which  we  have  not  before  seen.  It  has 
been  regarded  as  the  most  dramatic  point  of 
Samuel  Adams's  career.  One  may  well  dwell 
with  admiration  on  the  incidents  of  his  con 
duct.  Where  his  adversary  failed,  he  was 
strong.  Of  like  origin  and  training  with  him, 
in  Samuel  Adams's  case  the  fruit  had  been  le 
gitimate.  He  believed  with  all  his  heart  in 
the  people,  that  they  should  be  governed  only 
by  themselves  or  their  representatives,  and  was 
perfectly  fearless  and  uncompromising  against 


180  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

all  power,  whether  king,  Parliament,  or  sol 
diery,  which  contravened  the  great  right. 
While  he  moves  in  obedience  to  the  principle 
he  recognizes,  how  effective  at  this  time  is  his 
work  !  As  is  so  often  the  case,  he  is,  for  the  most 
part,  somewhat  withdrawn,  —  not  the  moderator 
of  the  town-meeting,  nor  indeed  chairman  of 
the  famous  committees,  —  but  nevertheless  the 
controlling  mind.  His  speech  at  Faneuil  Hall 
in  the  forenoon  of  the  6th  of  March  without 
doubt  outlined  the  whole  policy  that  must  be 
pursued.  When,  as  the  first  committee  passed 
from  the  south  door  of  the  State  House  to  the 
Old  South,  he  kept  repeating  to  right  and  left, 
"  Both  regiments  or  none,"  he  guided  the  whole 
action  of  the  people  as  the  crisis  approached. 
When,  an  hour  or  two  later,  Hancock  stepped 
aside  and  Samuel  Adams  walked  forward  in 
the  council  chamber  into  the  spokesman's  place, 
probably  he  was  the  one  man  of  the  Province 
who  could  then  have  brought  the  British  lion 
to  confusion.  He  himself  seems  to  have  felt 
that  it  was  the  great  moment  in  his  life.  For 
almost  the  only  time  in  his  whole  career,  we 
find  something  like  a  strain  of  personal  exulta 
tion  in  his  reference  to  this  scene.  Writing  of 
Hutchinson's  bearing  in  it  to  James  Warren  of 
Plymouth,  in  the  following  year,  he  says :  — 

"  It  was  then,  if  fancy  deceived  me  not,  I  observed 


THE  SAM  ADAMS  REGIMENTS.  181 

his  knees  to  tremble.  I  thought  I  saw  his  face  grow 
pale  (and  I  enjoyed  the  sight)  at  the  appearance  of 
the  determined  citizens  peremptorily  demanding  the 
redress  of  grievances." 

The  contemporary  historian,  as  we  have  seen, 
says  that  Dalrymple,  too,  trembled.  We  need 
not  feel,  however,  that  either  soldier  or  civilian 
played  then  the  part  of  the  craven.  The  cir 
cumstances  were  for  them  full  of  danger  and 
difficulty.  The  determination  of  ten  thousand 
freemen  was  focused  in  the  steel-blue  eyes  of 
Samuel  Adams  as  he  stood  in  the  council  cham 
ber  ;  the  tramp  of  their  feet  and  the  tumult  of 
their  voices  made  a  heavy  ground-tone  behind 
his  earnest,  decisive  words.  It  was  a  time  when 
even  a  brave  man  might  for  a  moment  blench. 

By  rare  good-fortune,  the  world  possesses 
what  is  probably  the  best  representation  that 
could  at  that  time  have  been  made  of  Samuel 
Adams  as,  on  that  March  day,  he  drove  the 
British  uniform  out  of  the  streets  of  Boston. 
John  Hancock,  two  years  later,  employed  the 
famous  John  Singleton  Copley  to  paint  portraits 
of  himself  and  Samuel  Adams,  which  hung  for 
fifty  years  on  the  walls  of  the  Hancock  House 
in  Beacon  Street,  which  were  then  removed  to 
Faneuil  Hall,  and  are  now  in  the  Art  Museum. 
Copley  was  at  first  well  disposed  to  the  popular 
cause.  At  the  time  of  the  Massacre  he  testified 


182  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

against  the  soldiers,  and  seems  to  have  admired 
the  bearing  of  Samuel  Adams  throughout  the 
disturbances.  At  any  rate,  for  this  portrait,  he 
has  chosen  to  give  Samuel  Adams  as  he  stood 
in  the  scene  with  Hutchinson  in  the  council 
chamber.  Against  a  background  suggestive  of 
gloom  and  disturbance,  the  figure  looks  forth. 
The  face  and  form  are  marked  by  great 
strength.  The  brow  is  high  and  broad,  and 
from  it  sweeps  back  the  abundant  hair,  streaked 
with  gray.  The  blue  eyes  are  full  of  light  and 
force,  the  nose  is  prominent,  the  lips  and  chin, 
brought  strongly  out  as  the  head  is  thrown 
somewhat  back,  are  full  of  determination.  In 
the  right  hand  a  scroll  is  held  firmly  grasped,  the 
energy  of  the  moment  appearing  in  the  cording 
of  the  sinews  as  the  sheets  bend  in  the  pressure. 
The  left  hand  is  thrown  forth  in  impassioned 
gesture,  the  forefinger  pointing  to  the  provin 
cial  charter,  which  with  the  great  seal  affixed, 
lies  half  unrolled  in  the  foreground.  The  plain 
dark-red  attire  announces  a  decent  and  simple 
respectability.  The  well-knit  figure  looks  as 
fixed  as  if  its  strength  came  from  the  granite 
on  which  the  Adamses  planted  themselves  when 
they  came  to  America ;  the  countenance  speaks 
in  every  line  the  man. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    CONTROVERSY    AS    TO     ROYAL    INSTRUC 
TIONS. 

IN  the  fall  of  the  year  Captain  Preston  and 
the  soldiers  were  brought  to  trial.  However 
the  rude  part  of  the  people  may  have  thirsted 
for  their  blood,  it  was  not  the  temper  of  the 
better-minded.  By  an  arrangement  in  which 
Samuel  Adams  had  a  share,  John  Adams  and 
Josiah  Quincy,  eminent  patriots  and  lawyers, 
appeared  as  counsel  for  the  prisoners,  while 
Robert  Treat  Paine,  also  eminent,  undertook 
the  prosecution.  Everything  was  done  to  se 
cure  for  the  prisoners  a  fair  trial.  The  town 
attempted  to  suppress  the  publication  of  the 
official  account  of  the  Massacre  until  proceed 
ings  were  over,  that  the  minds  of  the  jurors 
might  be  quite  unprejudiced.  Preston  was  en 
tirely  acquitted  ;  most  of  the  soldiers,  too,  were 
brought  in  "Not  guilty."  Two  were  found 
guilty  of  manslaughter,  but  let  off  with  no  more 
severe  punishment  than  being  branded  in  the 
hand  in  open  court.  John  Adams,  fully  per- 


184  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

suaded  of  the  innocence  of  the  accused,  and 
Quincy,  exerted  themselves  to  the  utmost  for 
their  clients,  and  every  extenuating  circum 
stance  was  allowed  its  full  weight.  Samuel 
Adams,  it  must  be  confessed,  appears  not  al 
ways  to  advantage  at  this  time.  He  was  little 
satisfied  with  the  postponement  of  the  trial, 
and  quite  displeased  with  the  issue.  With 
William  Cooper,  Warren,  arid  a  concourse  of 
people,  if  we  may  trust  Hutchinson,  he  appeared 
before  the  Superior  Court  after  the  judges  had 
decided  not  to  proceed  at  once,  and  sought  to 
induce  them  to  alter  their  decision.  The  trial 
he  followed  carefully,  constantly  taking  notes. 
At  its  conclusion,  over  the  signature  "  Vindex," 
he  examined  the  evidence  at  length,  pronounced 
much  of  that  given  for  the  soldiers  false,  and 
battled  fiercely  with  the  royalist  writers  who 
ventured  into  the  lists  against  him. 

The  conduct  of  the  town  of  Boston  was  really 
very  fine.  The  moderation  which  put  off  the 
arraignment  of  the  accused  men  until  the  pas 
sions  of  the  hour  had  subsided,  the  appearance 
of  John  Adams  and  Josiah  Quincy,  warm  pa 
triots,  in  the  defense,  the  acquittal  at  last  of  all 
but  two,  and  the  light  sentence  inflicted  upon 
these,  —  all  together  constituted  a  grand  tri 
umph  of  the  spirit  of  law  and  order,  at  a  time 
when  heated  feeling  might  have  been  expected 


ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  185 

to  carry  the  day.  If  Samuel  Adams's  counsels 
had  prevailed,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  out 
come  would  have  been  less  creditable.  The 
course  of  things  would  have  been  hurried,  the 
punishment  have  been  more  severe.  Yet  with 
all  their  undue  vehemence,  his  utterances  pos 
sess  sometimes  a  noble  grandeur.  As  "Vin- 
dex  "  he  declares : 1  — 

"  Philanthrop  may  tell  us  of  the  hazard  of  '  disturb 
ing  and  inflaming  the  minds  of  the  multitude  whose 
passions  know  no  bounds.'  The  multitude  I  am 
speaking  of  is  the  body  of  the  people,  no  contempti 
ble  multitude,  for  whose  sake  government  is  instituted, 
or  rather  who  have  themselves  erected  it,  solely  for 
their  own  good,  —  to  whom  even  kings  and  all  in 
subordination  to  them,  are,  strictly  speaking,  servants, 
not  masters." 

On  the  very  day  of  the  Boston  Massacre  Par 
liament  debated  the  repeal  of  the  taxes  imposed 
by  Townshend  upon  glass,  paper,  and  paints, 
voting  at  last,  as  has  been  said,  to  retain  only 
the  duty  upon  tea.  Since  the  right  of  taxa 
tion  without  representation  was  thus  adhered 
to,  the  concession  amounted  to  nothing,  and 
the  breach  between  mother-land  and  colonies 
remained  as  wide  as  ever. 

When  at  length  the  General  Court  convened, 
in  March,  a  most  tedious  dispute  arose  at  once. 
Says  Hutchinson :  — 

1  January  21,  1771. 


186  8  AMU  EL  ADAMS. 

"  There  came  a  signification  of  the  king's  pleasure 
that  the  General  Court  should  be  held  in  Cambridge, 
unless  the  lieutenant  -  governor  should  have  more 
weighty  reasons  for  holding  it  at  Boston  than  those 
which  were  mentioned  by  the  secretary  of  state 
against  it." 

Bernard,  as  we  know,  had  already  convened 
the  court  at  Cambridge,  in  violation,  as  was 
claimed,  of  the  charter,  causing  no  small  incon 
venience  to  the  members  and  also  to  Harvard 
College,  the  "  Philosophy  Room  "  in  which  was 
given  up  to  the  sessions.  The  main  point, 
however,  upon  which  the  Whigs  stood  was  the 
insufficiency  of  the  plea  of  royal  "  instructions  " 
for  violating  a  provision  of  the  charter.  The 
quarrel  continued  until  1772,  when  Hutchinson 
felt  forced  to  yield  the  point,  although  shortly 
before  he  had  been  on  the  brink  of  success. 
Both  Otis  and  Hancock  came  out  at  one  time 
on  the  government  side,  and  Gushing,  too,  was 
weak-kneed.  Hutchinson  might  well  have  felt 
that  he  was  made  even  with  his  adversary  for 
his  discomfiture  at  the  time  of  the  Massacre, 
when  one  day  he  was  waited  upon  by  a  legisla 
tive  committee  with  Sam  Adams  among  them, 
bearing  a  message  to  the  effect  that  they  rec 
ognized  his  power  under  royal  instruction  to 
remove  the  legislature  "  to  Housatonic,  in  the 
extreme  west  of  the  Province,  if  he  chose." 


ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  187 

For  the  patriot  cause  all  seemed  imperiled,  and 
Hutchinson  wrote  cheerfully,  looking  forward 
to  the  most  substantial  cleaving  of  difficulties 
from  the  success  of  this  entering  wedge.  He 
was  foiled,  however;  Bowdoin  and  Hawley  stood 
steadfastly  by  Samuel  Adams,  while  Otis,  speed 
ily  falling  once  more  under  the  power  of  his 
disease,  was  carried  off  bound  hand  and  foot. 
Hancock  came  round  again  to  his  old  friends. 
The  tail  of  the  British  lion  remained  in  the 
grasp  of  these  remorseless  twisters. 

While  the  debate  was  in  progress  Hutchin 
son  received  his  commission  as  governor,  not 
without  many  tokens  of  favor  in  spite  of  the 
lowering  brows  of  the  patriots.  His  brother- 
in-law,  Andrew  Oliver,  became  at  the  same 
time  lieutenant-governor,  and  Thomas  Flucker 
secretary.  Among  the  felicitations  Harvard 
College  paid  a  tribute,  while  the  students  made 
the  walls  of  Holden  Chapel  ring  with  the  an- 
them  :  — 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord  :  from  henceforth,  behold, 
all  nations  shall  call  thee  hlessed ;  for  thy  rulers 
shall  be  of  thy  own  kindred,  your  nobles  shall  be  of 
yourselves,  and  thy  governor  shall  proceed  from  the 
midst  of  thee." 

Shortly  before,  in  1770,  died  Dennys  De- 
be  rdt,  who  had  served  the  Assembly  long  and 
faithfully  in  England  as  agent;  and  in  his 


188  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

place,  not  without  considerable  resistance, 
Franklin  "was  elected.  This  famous  Boston 
boy,  who  as  a  youth  had  gone  to  Pennsylvania, 
and  after  a  remarkable  career  had  at  length 
proceeded  to  England,  was  already  the  agent 
of  Pennsylvania.  No  American  as  yet  had 
gained  so  wide  a  fame  on  both  sides  of  the  At 
lantic.  His  discoveries  in  natural  philosophy 
gave  him  high  rank  among  men  of  science,  and 
his  abilities  in  politics  had  also  become  gener 
ally  recognized.  In  Massachusetts,  neverthe 
less,  a  considerable  party  distrusted  him,  among 
whom  stood  Samuel  Adams ;  and  it  is  easy  to 
understand  why.  Franklin's  wide  acquaintance 
with  the  world,  joined  to  a  disposition  natu 
rally  free,  had  lifted  him  to  a  degree  that  might 
well  seem  alarming  above  the  limitations  rec 
ognized  as  proper  by  all  true  New  England- 
ers.  The  boy  who,  according  to  the  well-known 
story,  had  advised  his  father  to  say  grace  once 
for  all  over  the  whole  barrel  of  beef  in  the  cel 
lar,  and  so  avoid  the  necessity  of  a  blessing  at 
table  over  each  separate  piece,  was  indeed  the 
father  of  the  man.  Plenty  of  stories  were  rife 
respecting  Franklin,  that  touched  the  Puritan 
corns  as  much  as  would  this.  At  the  present 
time,  indeed,  it  is  not  merely  the  over-fastidious 
who  take  exception  to  certain  passages  in 
Franklin's  life.  To  stern  Samuel  Adams  and 


ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  189 

his  sympathizers  no  man  upon  whom  rested  a 
suspicion  of  free  thinking  or  free  living  could 
be  congenial. 

There  were  still  other  reasons,  which  had 
probably  more  weight  than  that  just  men 
tioned  in  bringing  it  about  that,  just  at  this 
time  Franklin  should  be  opposed  in  Massachu 
setts.  In  some  respects,  to  be  sure,  his  political 
declarations  were  exceedingly  bold  ;  witness  his 
famous  "  examination  "  in  1765.  With  all  this, 
however,  Franklin  was  strenuously  opposed  to 
any  revolution.  The  British  empire  he  com 
pared  to  a  magnificent  china  bowl,  ruined  if  a 
piece  were  broken  out  of  it,  and  he  earnestly 
recommended  that  it  should  be  kept  together. 
With  grand  foresight  he  anticipated  the  speedy 
peopling  of  the  Mississippi  valley,  though  at 
that  time  few  Europeans  had  crossed  the  Alle- 
ghanies  ;  and  he  thought  the  time  was  not  far 
off  when  this  portion  of  the  English  dominions 
would  preponderate,  when  even  the  seat  of  gov 
ernment  might  be  transferred  hither,  and  Amer 
ica  become  principal,  while  England  should  be 
come  subordinate.  For  the  views  of  Samuel 
Adams,  Franklin,  probably,  had  as  little  liking 
as  Adams  had  for  those  of  Franklin.  As  late  as 
the  summer  of  1773  Franklin  wrote  to  Boston, 
deprecating  the  influence  of  the  violent  spirits 
who  were  for  a  rupture  with  the  mother  coun- 


190  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

try.  "  This  Protestant  country  (our  mother, 
though  of  late  an  unkind  one)  is  worth  preserv 
ing  ;  her  weight  in  the  scale  of  Europe,  and 
her  safety  in  a  great  degree,  may  depend  on 
our  union  with  her."  To  his  well-known  de 
sire  to  remain  united  to  England  was  added 
the  fact  that  Franklin,  as  deputy  postmaster- 
general,  held  an  important  crown  office,  while 
his  natural  son,  William  Franklin,  was  royal 
governor  of  New  Jersey,  and  a  pronounced 
Tory. 

»  Samuel  Adams  acquiesced  in  the  appoint- 
U^ment  of  Franklin,  though  his  party  succeeded 
in  associating  with  him  the  Virginian,  Arthur 
Lee  ;  and  at  the  fall  session  of  1770,  by  the 
bidding  of  the  House,  Samuel  Adams  had  sent 
the  new  agent  a  long  letter  of  instructions,  in 
which  the  grievances  were  recapitulated  for 
which  Franklin  was  to  seek  redress.  These  in 
clude  the  quartering  of  troops  on  the  people  in 
time  of  peace  ;  the  policy  of  arbitrary  instruc 
tions  from  his  majesty's  secretaries  of  state  in 
violation  of  the  charter;  the  removal  of  the 
legislature  from  Boston  ;  the  secrecy  as  to  in 
tended  measures  of  government,  with  the  con 
cealment  from  the  colonies  of  the  names  of  their 
accusers  and  of  the  allegations  against  them ; 
the  sending  to  England  of  false  reports  of 
speeches  and  legislative  proceedings  under  the 


!(  U 

ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  ^y     191 

•- 

Province  seal ;  the  enormous  extension  *of  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Admiralty  Courts,  in  viSar"  .... 
tion  of  the  clause  of  Magna  Charta  by  which 
every  freeman  on  trial  was  entitled  to  the 
"  judgment  of  his  peers  on  the  law  of  the 
land  ;  "  and  finally  the  threatened  bestowal  by 
the  king  of  salaries  upon  the  attorney-general, 
judges,  and  governor  of  the  Province,  thus  re 
moving  their  dependence  upon  the  people.  All 
these  subjects  are  treated  in  detail.  The  let 
ter  was  not  only  sent  to  Franklin,  but  was  pub 
lished  in  full  in  the  "  Boston  Gazette."  Hutch- 
inson  sent  a  copy  to  England,  denouncing  Sam 
uel  Adams  by  name  as  the  author,  and  calling 
him  the  "  all  in  all,"  the  "  great  incendiary 
leader." 

In  August,  1771,  a  strong  fleet  of  twelve 
sail,  under  Admiral  Montague,  brother  of  the 
Earl  of  Sandwich,  a  commander  who  among 
the  old  sea-dogs  of  England  seems  to  have  been 
marked  by  characteristics  especially  canine, 
cast  anchor  before  the  town.  The  pretext  was 
the  impending  war  with  Spain,  but  all  knew  it 
was  intended  to  check  the  spread  of  sedition. 
It  is  hard  to  see  in  these  years  how  the  Whig 
cause  could  have  been  prevented  from  going 
by  the  board,  but  for  Samuel  Adams.  Now  in 
the  newspapers,  now  in  the  Boston  town-meet 
ing,  now  at  the  head  of  his  party  in  the  House, 


192  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

at  the  first  symptom  of  danger  he  was  on  the 
alert  with  resolute  remonstrance,  the  more  vig 
orous  as  those  about  him  grew  weary  and  reac 
tionary.  Fighting  steadily  the  removal  of  the 
legislature,  he  was  once  more  up  in  arms  when 
Hutchinson,  in  obedience  again  to  "  instruc 
tions,"  was  about  to  surrender  the  command  of 
the  Castle  to  Dalrymple,  though  the  charter 
required  that  the  commander  should  be  an  offi 
cer  of  the  Province.  Again,  at  the  hint  that 
the  governors  and  the  law  officers  were  to  re 
ceive  salaries  from  the  king  and  to  be  110  longer 
dependent  on  the  Province,  there  was  the  fierc 
est  "  oppugnation."  This  point,  indeed,  be 
came  at  once  the  subject  of  a  quarrel  of  the 
sharpest,  just  as  the  long  dispute  was  closing 
respecting  the  removal  of  the  legislature. 

Almost  the  first  business  to  which  the 
House  turned  in  May,  1772,  was  the  question 
of  the  governor  receiving  a  salary  from  the 
king.  Hutchinson  now  avowed  that  his  sup 
port  in  future  was  to  proceed  from  the  king, 
and  declined  to  accept  compensation  from  the 
Province.  Vigorous  resolutions  ,were  passed 
declaring  this  to  be  a  violation  of  the  char 
ter,  "exposing  the  Province  to  a  despotic  ad 
ministration  of  government."  Hawley  was 
chairman  of  the  committee  reporting  the  res 
olutions,  but  Samuel  Adams  was  concerned  in 


ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  193 

their  composition.  When  they  passed  by  a 
vote  of  eighty-five  to  nineteen,  several  of  the 
loyalists  withdrew  discouraged.  The  legisla 
ture,  made  sullen,  refused  to  repair  the  Prov 
ince  House,  and  Hutchinson,  after  an  energetic 
reply  to  Hawley's  resolutions,  prorogued  the 
court  until  September.  During  the  summer 
Lord  Hillsborough  retired  from  his  secretary 
ship,  making  it  known  to  the  lords  of  trade  on 
the  eve  of  that  event  that  the  king,  "  with  the 
entire  concurrence  of  Lord  North,  had  made 
provision  for  the  support  of  his  law  servants  in 
the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay."  In  Sep 
tember  this  news  became  known  in  Boston,  and 
that  warrants  had  been  ordered  on  the  com 
missioners  of  customs  for  the  payments.  The 
rising  tone  in  the  writings  of  Samuel  Adams  is 
very  apparent.  As  "  Vindex  "  he  had  declared 
in  the  "  Boston  Gazette,"  when  only  rumors 
were  rife,  — 

"  I  think  the  alteration  of  our  free  and  mutually 
dependent  constitution  into  a  dependent  ministerial 
despotism,  a  grievance  so  great,  so  ignominious  and 
intolerable,  that  in  case  I  did  not  hope  things  would 
in  some  measure  regain  their  ancient  situation  without 
more  bloodshed  and  murder  than  has  been  already 
committed,  I  could  freely  wish  at  the  risk  of  my  all, 
to  have  a  fair  chance  of  offering  to  the  manes  of  my 
slaughtered  countrymen  a  libation  of  the  blood  of 
the  ruthless  traitors  who  conspired  their  destruction." 

13 


194  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

As  "Valerius  Poplicola,"  October  5,  1772, 
lie  is  even  more  earnest. 

"  Is  it  not  enough,"  he  cried,  "  to  have  a  Governor 
an  avowed  advocate  for  ministerial  measures,  and  a 
most  assiduous  instrument  in  carrying  them  on, 
model'd,  shaped,  controul'd,  and  directed,  totally  inde 
pendent  of  the  people  over  whom  he  is  commissioned 
to  govern,  and  yet  absolutely  dependent  upon  the 
Crown,  pension'd  by  those  on  whom  his  existence 
depends,  and  paid  out  of  a  revenue  establish'd  by 
those  who  have  no  authority  to  establish  it,  and  ex 
torted  from  the  people  in  a  Manner  most  odious,  in 
sulting,  and  oppressive?  Is  not  this  indignity  enough 
to  be  felt  by  those  who  have  any  feeling  ?  Are  we 
still  threatened  with  more  ?  Is  Life,  Property,  and 
everything  dear  and  sacred  to  be  now  submitted  to 
the  Decisions  of  PENSIONED  judges,  holding  their 
places  during  the  pleasure  of  such  a  Governor,  and  a 
Council  perhaps  overawed  ?  To  what  a  state  of  In 
famy,  Wretchedness,  and  Misery  shall  we  be  reduced, 
if  our  Judges  shall  be  prevail'd  upon  to  be  thus  de 
graded  to  HIRELINGS,  and  the  BODY  of  the  people 
shall  suffer  their  free  Constitution  to  be  overturned 
and  ruin'd.  Merciful  God  I  inspire  thy  people  with 
wisdom  and  fortitude,  and  direct  them  to  gracious  ends. 
In  this  extreme  distress,  when  the  plan  of  slavery  seems 
nearly  compleated,  0  save  our  country  from  impend 
ing  ruin.  Let  not  the  iron  hand  of  tyranny  ravish  our 
laws  and  seize  the  badge  of  freedom,  nor  avowed  Cor 
ruption  and  the  murderous  Rage  of  lawless  Power  be 
ever  seen  on  the  sacred  Seat  of  Justice  ! 


ROYAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  195 

"  Let  us  converse  together  upon  this  most  interest 
ing  Subject,  and  open  our  minds  freely  to  each  other. 
Let  it  be  the  topic  of  conversation  in  every  social 
club.  Let  every  Town  assemble.  Let  Associations 
and  Combinations  be  everywhere  set  up  to  consult 
and  recover  our  just  Rights. 

'  The  country  claims  our  active  aid. 

That  let  us  roam  ;  &  where  we  find  a  spark 

Of  public  Virtue,  blow  it  into  Flame.'  " 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE. 

"  LET  associations  and  combinations  be  every 
where  set  up  to  consult  and  recover  our  just 
rights."  This  suggestion,  contained  at  the  end 
of  the  paper  quoted  at  the  close  of  the  last 
chapter,  Samuel  Adams  proceeded  to  put  at 
once  in  practice,  setting  on  foot  one  of  the  most 
memorable  schemes  with  which  his  name  is  as 
sociated.  As  his  career  has  been  traced,  we 
have  seen  that  in  the  instructions  of  1764  and 
frequently  since,  his  recognition  of  the  impor 
tance  of  a  thorough  understanding  between  the 
widely  separated  patriots  has  appeared.  A  let 
ter  of  the  previous  year  to  Arthur  Lee  contains 
the  definite  suggestion  of  a  Committee  of  Cor 
respondence,  "  a  sudden  thought  which  di^ps 
undigested  from  my  pen,"  which  should  not 
only  promote  union  among  the  Americans,  but 
also  with  men  similarly  minded  in  England, 
like  the  society  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  The 
task  before  Samuel  Adams  was  a  hard  one. 
Not  only  must  he  thwart  the  Tories,  but  he 


THE  COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE.    197 

found  the  patriots  for  the  most  part  quite  in 
different  ;  he  may  be  said,  indeed,  to  have 
worked  out  the  scheme  alone.  Gushing,  Han 
cock,  and  Phillips,  his  associates  of  the  Boston 
seat,  were  against  his  idea,  as  were  also  the 
more  influential  among  the  selectmen.  War 
ren  indeed  was  a  strenuous  helper,  but  had 
not  yet  risen  into  great  significance.  Church 
appeared  zealous,  but  he  was  secretly  a  trai 
tor.  Three  petitions  were  presented  to  the 
selectmen,  and  three  weeks  passed  before  the 
meeting  could  be  brought  about.  In  the  last 
petition  the  number  of  names  was  much  di 
minished,  indicating  the  difficulty  which  Sam 
uel  Adams  found  in  holding  the  people  to  the 
work.  He  used  what  influence  he  could  out 
side  of  Boston  to  prepare  the  way  for  his  idea 
in  other  towns.  Writing  to  Elbridge  Gerry, 
a  young  man  of  twenty-eight,  with  whom  he 
was  just  coming  into  a  connection  that  grew 
into  a  close  and  unbroken  life-long  friendship, 
who  had  encouraged  him  with  an  account  of 
interest  felt  at  Marblehead,  he  says :  — 

"  Our  enemies  would  intimidate  us  by  saying  our 
brethren  in  the  other  towns  are  indifferent  about  this 
matter,  for  which  reason  I  am  particularly  glad  to  re 
ceive  your  letter  at  this  time.  Roxbury  I  am  told  is 
fully  awake.  I  wish  we  could  arouse  the  continent." 

A  town-meeting  took  place,  which  was  ad- 


198  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

journed  and  again  adjourned,  in  the  general 
lethargy  ;  so  slight  was  the  interest  with  which 
the  successive  steps  in  a  movement  of  the  first 
importance  were  regarded !  Hutchinson,  in  an 
swer  to  a  resolution  of  inquiry  and  a  request 
that  the  legislature,  which  was  to  meet  Decem 
ber  2,  might  not  be  prorogued,  replied,  — 

"  That  the  charter  reserved  to  the  governor  the 
full  power,  from  time  to  time,  to  adjourn,  prorogue, 
or  dissolve  the  Assembly.  A  compliance  with  the 
petition  would  be  to  yield  to  them  the  exercise  of  that 
part  of  the  prerogative.  There  would  be  danger  of 
encouraging  the  inhabitants  of  other  towns  in  the 
Province  to  similar  procedures,  which  the  law  had 
not  made  the  business  of  town-meetings." 

The  town-meeting  caused  the  governor's 
words  to  be  read  again  and  again  before  it,  and 
voted  them  to  be  "  not  satisfactory."  The  pro 
ceeding  illustrates  well  the  astuteness  and 
knowledge  of  men  of  Samuel  Adams,  who  was 
certainly  as  consummate  a  political  manager  as 
the  country  has  ever  seen.  He  drafted  for  the 
town  the  resolution  and  request  to  the  gov 
ernor,  which  have  just  been  referred  to,  and 
which  apparently  relate  to  something  very  dif 
ferent  from  his  real  purposes ;  he  was  chairman 
of  the  committee  which  presented  these  docu 
ments.  The  whole  thing  was  a  trap.  He  wrote 
afterwards  to  Gerry  that  he  knew  such  requests, 


THE  COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE.    199 

couched  in  such  terms,  must  provoke  from 
Hutchinson  an  arrogant  answer,  the  Affect  of 
which  would  be  to  touch  the  people  in  a  point 
where  they  were  sensitive,  and  produce  unan 
imity  for  the  course  which  he  desired  to  pur 
sue.  As  he  had  expected  and  planned,  the 
town-meeting  resolved  unanimously  that  "  they 
have  ever  had  and  ought  to  have,  a  right  to 
petition  the  king  or  his  representative  for  a 
redress  of  such  grievances  as  they  feel,  or  for 
preventing  such  as  they  have  reason  to  appre 
hend,  and  to  communicate  their  sentiments  to 
other  towns." 

The  town-meeting  having  been  brought  into 
an  appropriate  mood,  there  followed  the  motion 
which  in  its  consequences  was  perhaps  the  most 
important  step  which  had  so  far  been  taken  in 
bringing  into  existence  the  new  nation.  The 
town  records  of  Boston  say :  — 

"  It  was  then  moved  by  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  that 
a  Committee  of  Correspondence  be  appointed,  to  con 
sist  of  twenty-one  persons,  to  state  the  rights  of  the 
colonists  and  of  this  Province  in  particular  as  men 
and  Christians  and  as  subjects  ;  and  to  communicate 
and  publish  the  same  to  the  several  towns  and  to  the 
world  as  the  sense  of  this  town,  with  the  infring- 
ments  and  violations  thereof  that  have  been  or  from 
time  to  time  may  be  made." 

The   motion    occasioned   some   debate    and 


200  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

seems  to  have  been  carried  late  at  night ;  the 
vote  in  its  favor,  at  last,  was  nearly  unanimous. 
The  colleagues  of  Adams,  who  had  left  him 
almost  alone  thus  far,  now  declined  to  become 
members  of  the  committee,  regarding  the 
scheme  as  useless  or  trifling.  The  committee 
was  at  last  constituted  without  them ;  it  was 
made  up  of  men  of  little  prominence  but  of 
thorough  respectability.  James  Otis,  in  another 
interval  of  sanity,  was  made  chairman,  a  posi 
tion  purely  honorary,  the  town  in  this  way 
showing  its  respect  for  the  leader  whose  mis 
fortunes  they  so  sincerely  mourned. 

The  Committee  of  Correspondence  held  its 
first  meeting  in  the  representatives'  chamber  at 
the  town-house,  November  3, 1T72,  where  at  the 
outset  each  member  pledged  himself  to  observe 
secrecy  as  to  their  transactions,  except  those 
which,  as  a  committee,  they  should  think  it 
proper  to  divulge.  According  to  the  motion  by 
which  the  committee  was  constituted,  three  du 
ties  were  to  be  performed :  1st,  the  preparation 
of  a  statement  of  the  rights  of  the  colonists,  as 
men,  as  Christians,  and  as  subjects;  2d,  a  dec 
laration  of  the  infringement  and  violation  of 
those  rights ;  3d,  a  letter,  to  be  sent  to  the  sev 
eral  towns  of  the  Province  and  to  the  world, 
giving  the  sense  of  the  town.  The  drafting  of 
the  first  was  assigned  to  Samuel  Adams,  of 


THE  COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE.    201 

the  second  to  Joseph  Warren,  of  the  third  to 
Benjamin  Church.  In  a  few  days  tidings  came 
from  the  important  towns  of  Marblehead,  Rox- 
bury,  Cambridge,  and  Plymouth,  indicating  that 
the  example  of  Boston  was  making  impression 
and  was  likely  to  be  followed.  On  November 
20,  at  a  town-meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  the 
different  papers  were  presented :  Otis  sat  as 
moderator,  appearing  for  the  last  time  in  a 
sphere  where  his  career  had  been  so  magnifi 
cent.  The  report  was  in  three  divisions,  ac 
cording  to  the  motion.  The  part  by  Samuel 
Adams,  which  has  absurdly  been  attributed  to 
Otis  by  later  writers,  is  still  extant  in  his  au 
tograph.  The  paper  of  Warren  recapitulated 
the  long  list  of  grievances  under  which  the 
Province  had  suffered ;  while  Church,  in  a  let 
ter  to  the  selectmen  of  the  various  towns,  solic 
ited  a  free  communication  of  the  sentiments  of 
all,  expressing  the  belief  that  the  wisdom  of 
the  people  would  not  "  suffer  them  to  doze  or 
sit  supinely  indifferent  on  the  brink  of  destruc 
tion." 

In  the  last  days  of  1772,  the  document,  hav 
ing  been  printed,  was  transmitted  to  those  for 
whom  it  had  been  intended,  producing  at  once 
an  immense  effect.  The  towns  almost  unani 
mously  appointed  similar  committees ;  from 
every  quarter  came  replies  in  which  the  senti- 


202  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ments  of  Samuel  Adams  were  echoed.  In  the 
library  of  Bancroft  is  a  volume  of  manuscripts, 
worn  and  stained  by  time,  which  have  an  in 
terest  scarcely  inferior  to  that  possessed  by 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  itself,  as  the 
fading  page  hangs  against  its  pillar  in  the  li 
brary  of  the  State  Department  at  Washington. 
They  are  the  original  replies  sent  by  the  Mas 
sachusetts  towns  to  Samuel  Adams's  commit 
tee,  sitting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  during  those  first 
months  of  1773.  One  may  well  read  them 
with  bated  breath,  for  it  is  the  touch  of  the 
elbow  as  the  stout  little  democracies  dress  up 
into  line,  just  before  they  plunge  into  actual 
fight  at  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill.  There  is 
sometimes  a  noble  scorn  of  the  restraints  of  or 
thography,  as  of  the  despotism  of  Great  Britain, 
in  the  work  of  the  old  town  clerks,  for  they  gen 
erally  were  secretaries  of  the  committees ;  and 
once  in  a  while  a  touch  of  Dogberry's  quaint- 
ness,  as  the  punctilious  officials,  though  not  al 
ways  "  putting  God  first,"  yet  take  pains  that 
there  shall  be  no  mistake  as  to  their  piety  by 
making  every  letter  in  the  name  of  the  Deity 
a  rounded  capital.  Yet  the  documents  ought 
to  inspire  the  deepest  reverence.  They  con 
stitute  the  highest  mark  the  town-meeting  has 
ever  touched.  Never  before  and  never  since 
have  Anglo-Saxon  men,  in  lawful  folk-mote 


THE   COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE.     203 

assembled,  given  utterance  to  thoughts  and 
feelings  so  fine  in  themselves  and  so  pregnant 
with  great  events.  To  each  letter  stand  af 
fixed  the  names  of  the  committee  in  autograph. 
This  awkward  scrawl  was  made  by  the  rough 
fist  of  a  Cape  Ann  fisherman,  on  shore  for  the 
day  to  do  at  town-meeting  the  duty  his  fellows 
had  laid  upon  him  ;  the  hand  that  wrote  this 
other  was  cramped  from  the  scythe-handle,  as 
its  possessor  mowed  an  intervale  on  the  Con 
necticut  ;  this  blotted  signature,  where  smutted 
fingers  have  left  a  black  stain,  was  written  by 
a  blacksmith  of  Middlesex,  turning  aside  a  mo 
ment  from  forging  a  barrel  that  was  to  do  duty 
at  Lexington.  They  were  men  of  the  plainest ; 
but  as  the  documents,  containing  statements  of 
the  most  generous  principles  and  the  most  cour 
ageous  determination,  were  read  in  the  town- 
houses,  the  committees  who  produced  them,  and 
the  constituents  for  whom  the  committees  stood, 
were  lifted  above  the  ordinary  level.  Their 
horizon  expanded  to  the  broadest ;  they  had  in 
view  not  simply  themselves,  but  the  welfare  of 
the  continent ;  not  solely  their  own  generation, 
but  remote  posterity.  It  was  Samuel  Adams's 
own  plan,  the  consequences  of  which  no  one 
foresaw,  neither  friend  nor  foe.  Even  Hutchin- 
son,  who  was  scarcely  less  keen  than  Samuel 
Adams  himself,  was  completely  at  fault.  "  Such 


204  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

a  foolish  scheme,"  he  called  it,  "that  the  faction 
must  necessarily  make  themselves  ridiculous." 
But  in  January  the  eyes  of  men  were  opening. 
One  of  the  ablest  of  the  Tories,  Daniel  Leon 
ard,  wrote  :  — 

"  This  is  the  foulest,  subtlest,  and  most  venomous 
serpent  ever  issued  from  the  egg  of  sedition.  I  saw 
the  small  seed  when  it  was  implanted  ;  it  was  a  grain 
of  mustard.  I  have  watched  the  plant  until  it  has 
become  a  great  tree." 

It  was  the  transformation  into  a  strong  cord 
of  what  had  been  a  rope  of  sand. 

Though  Samuel  Adams  could  be  terribly  in 
earnest,  as  sufficiently  appears  from  the  ex 
tracts  which  have  been  made,  there  is  never  an 
excess  of  zeal  and  rage,  such  as  shows  itself 
sometimes  in  his  more  youthful  and  hot-headed 
disciples,  Warren  and  Quincy.  During  the  oc 
cupation  of  Boston  by  the  troops,  Wah-en  was 
known  to  be  ready  with  knock-down  arguments, 
upon  occasion,  for  red-coats  that  were  too  forth- 
putting,  and  once  exclaimed  to  William  Eustis, 
afterwards  governor  of  Massachusetts :  "  These 
fellows  say  we  won't  fight ;  by  heavens,  I  hope 
I  shall  die  up  to  my  knees  in  blood ! "  Dur 
ing  the  agitation  before  the  formation  of  the 
Committee  of  Correspondence,  Josiah  Quincy 
wrote  :  — 


THE   COMMITTEE  OF  CORRESPONDENCE.    205 

"  The  word  of  God  has  pointed  the  mode  of  relief 
from  Moabitish  oppression  :  prayers  and  tears  with 
the  help  of  a  dagger.  The  Lord  of  light  has  given  us 
the  fit  message  to  send  to  a  tyrant :  a  dagger  of  a 
cubit  in  his  belly  ;  and  every  worthy  man  who  desires 
to  be  an  Ehud,  the  deliverer  of  his  country,  will  strive 
to  be  the  messenger." 

Such  outbreaks  of  vindictive  frenzy  never 
appeared  in  the  speech  or  conduct  of  Samuel 
Adams,  though  as  a  dire  necessity  from  which 
there  could  be  no  shrinking  without  sacrifice  of 
principle  an  appeal  to  the  sword  at  some  time 
not  far  distant  began  to  seem  to  him  inevi 
table. 

How  high  the  name  of  Samuel  Adams  stood 
elsewhere  than  in  Massachusetts,  was  shown 
early  in  1773  in  the  matter  of  the  burning  of 
the  British  man-of-war  Gaspee,  in  Narragan- 
sett  Bay.  The  zealous  officer  who  commanded 
her  had  brought  upon  himself  the  ill-will  of 
the  people  by  the  faithfulness  with  which  he 
carried  out  his  instructions  in  executing  the 
obnoxious  revenue  laws.  His  vessel  running 
ashore,  a  party  from  Providence  attacked  her  in 
boats,  and  after  a  fight,  in  which  the  commander 
was  wounded,  the  Gaspee  was  burned.  The 
wrath  of  the  Tories  and  of  the  officers  of  the 
British  army  and  navy  was  great.  A  board  of 
commissioners  appointed  by  the  crown  convened 


206  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

at  Providence,  who,  it  was  believed,  would  send 
the  culprits  to  England  for  punishment,  and 
perhaps  take  away  the  charter  of  Rhode  Island. 
Through  the  general  connivance  of  the  people, 
the  British  admiral  and  the  governor  could  not 
find  the  actors  in  the  affair,  although  they  were 
well  known.  Matters  wore  a  dark  look.  In 
their  distress,  the  leading  men  of  the  colony, 
looking  about  for  an  adviser,  made  respectful 
application  to  Samuel  Adams :  "  Give  us  your 
opinion  in  what  manner  this  colony  had  best 
behave  in  this  critical  situation,  and  how  the 
shock  that  is  coming  upon  us  may  be  best 
evaded  or  sustained."  Samuel  Adams,  while 
giving  advice  in  detail,  makes  a  suggestion 
which  plainly  shows  what  thought  now  espe 
cially  occupies  him :  — 

"  I  beg  to  propose  for  your  consideration  whether 
a  circular  letter  from  your  Assembly  on  the  occasion, 
to  those  of  the  other  colonies,  might  not  tend  to  the 
advantage  of  the  general  cause  and  of  Rhode  Island 
in  particular." 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE    CONTROVERSY    AS    TO    PARLIAMENTARY 
AUTHORITY. 

IN  the  long  struggle  between  the  patriots  and 
the  government  the  student  becomes  bewil 
dered,  so  numerous  are  the  special  discussions, 
and  so  involved  with  one  another.  Hutching 
son  and  Samuel  Adams  stand  respectively  at 
the  heads  of  the  opposed  powers,  each  dex 
terous,  untiring,  fearless ;  and  as  the  spectator 
of  a  mortal  combat  with  swords  between  a  pair 
of  nimble,  energetic  strivers  might  easily  be 
come  confused  in  the  breathless  interchange  of 
thrust  and  parry,  so  in  trying  to  follow  this  un 
remitting  ten  years'  fight,  there  is  absolutely  no 
place  where  one  can  rest.  The  attention  must 
be  fixed  throughout,  or  some  essential  phase  of 
the  battle  is  lost. 

However  deceived  Hutchinson  may  have 
been  for  an  instant  as  to  the  effect  of  his 
great  rival's  stroke  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Committee  of  Correspondence,  his  eyes  were 
jn  a  moment  opened,  and  with  his  usual  quick- 


208  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ness  he  was  ready  at  once  with  his  guard. 
He  convened  the  legislature  January  6,  1773, 
and  whereas  he  had  always  heretofore  avoided 
a  formal  discussion  of  the  great  question  at 
issue,  preferring  to  assume  the  authority  of 
Parliament  over  the  colonies  as '  a  matter  of 
course,  he  now  sent  to  the  legislature  a  pow 
erful  message  in  which  the  doctrine  of  par 
liamentary  supremacy  was  elaborately  vindi 
cated.  The  reception  of  such  a  paper  was  to 
the  legislature  a  matter  of  the  gravest  mo 
ment.  Hutchinson  was  unsurpassed  in  acute- 
ness  ;  no  one  knew  so  thoroughly  as  he  the 
history  of  the  colonies  from  the  beginning ; 
his  legal  reading  had  been  so  wide  that  few 
could  match  him  in  the  citation  of  precedents. 
At  his  command,  too,  were  all  the  skill  and 
learning  of  the  Tory  party,  which  included 
strong  men,  like  Daniel  Leonard,  the  news 
paper  writer,  and  Jonathan  Sewall,  the  attor 
ney-general.  Reviewing  the  past  usages  of 
Massachusetts,  the  governor  undertook  to  show 
that  the  course  of  things  favored  the  idea  of 
the  supremacy  of  Parliament,  which  had  never 
been  denied  until  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act. 
The  grant  of  liberties  and  immunities  in  the 
charter  could  not  be  understood  as  relieving 
the  Province  from  obligations  toward  the  su 
preme  legislature,  but  was  only  an  assurance  on 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY.  209 

the  part  of  the  crown  to  the  Americans  that 
they  had  not  become  aliens,  but  remained  free- 
born  subjects  everywhere  in  the  dominions  of 
Britain.  By  their  voluntary  removal  from 
England  to  America,  they  relinquished  a  right 
which  they  could  resume  whenever  they  chose 
to  return  to  England,  —  the  right,  namely,  of 
voting  for  the  persons  who  made  the  laws. 
The  fact  that  they  had  voluntarily  relinquished 
this  right  by  removing  could  by  no  means  be 
understood  as  destroying  the  authority  of  the 
law-makers  over  them.  No  line,  he  alleged, 
could  be  drawn  between  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  supremacy  of  Parliament  and  inde 
pendence  ;  and  the  governor  asked  if  there 
was  anything  they  had  greater  reason  to  dread 
than  independence,  exposed  as  they  would  then 
be  in  their  weakness  to  the  attacks  of  any 
power  which  might  choose  to  destroy  them. 
Hutchinson  supported  and  illustrated  his  posi 
tions  by  references  to  history  and  constitutional 
authorities  far  and  near.  The  tone  of  the  doc 
ument  was  moderate  and  candid :  "  If  I  am 
wrong  I  wish  to  be  convinced  of  my  error.  .  .  . 
I  have  laid  before  you  what  I  think  are  the 
principles  of  your  constitution  ;  if  you  do  not 
agree  with  me,  I  wish  to  know  your  objec 
tions."  Nothing  could  be  better  adapted  to 
weaken  the  spirit  of  opposition,  to  which  the 
14 


210  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Committees  of  Correspondence  were  giving  new 
strength. 

The  governor's  message  produced  a  wide  and 
profound  effect.  The  newspapers  spread  it  to 
the  world.  It  was  read  not  only  throughout 
Massachusetts,  but  throughout  America ;  in 
England,  too,  it  was  widely  circulated.  Many 
a  patriot  knit  his  brows  over  it  as  a  paper  most 
formidable  to  his  cause ;  the  Tories  called  it 
unanswerable,  and  extolled  its  author  as  a  rea- 
soner  whom  none  could  overthrow.  But  over 
against  him  stood  his  adversary,  wary,  watchful, 
undismayed,  and  the  counter-stroke  was  at  once 
delivered.  As  Hutchinson  had  summoned  to 
his  help  all  the  acumen  and  learning  of  the  loy 
alists,  so  his  opponent  laid  under  contribution 
whatever  shrewdness  or  knowledge  could  be 
found  in  the  opposite  camp.  Hawley  and  John 
Adams,  in  particular,  lent  their  help.  The 
master  agitator,  however,  himself  arranged  and 
combined  all,  presenting  at  last  an  instrument 
in  his  own  clear,  unequivocal  English,  which 
the  simplest  could  grasp,  which  the  ablest 
found  it  difficult  to  gainsay.  On  January  8, 
the  speech  of  the  governor  had  had  a  second 
reading ;  then  a  committee,  with  Samuel  Ad 
ams  for  its  chairman,  was  appointed  to  reply, 
which  reported  its  answer  on  the  22d.  The 
Assembly  entered  into  long  and  careful  de- 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY.  211 

liberation  concerning  it.  They  had  been  ac 
customed  to  follow  with  little  question  their 
strongest  minds,  particularly  of  late  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Boston  seat ;  but  in  the  present 
crisis  they  seem  to  have  resolved  to  take  no 
leap  in  the  dark.  The  answer  of  the  com 
mittee  was  taken  up  paragraph  by  paragraph, 
and  thorough  proof  was  demanded  for  the 
soundness  of  all  the  arguments  and  the  cor 
rectness  of  the  citations  from  authorities.  All 
this  the  committee  furnished. 

The  reply,  as  it  came  out  from  this  inquisi 
tion,  traversed  the  governor's  speech,  position  by 
position.  The  disturbed  condition  of  the  Prov 
ince,  to  which  he  had  made  allusion,  was  attrib 
uted  to  the  unprecedented  course  of  Parliament. 
The  charters  granted  by  Elizabeth  and  James 
were  cited,  and  much  space  was  taken  in  show 
ing  that  the  laws  of  the  colonies  were  intended 
to  conform  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
English  constitution,  and  that  they  did  not  im 
ply  the  supremacy  of  Parliament.  The  terri 
tory  of  America  was  at  the  absolute  disposal  of 
the  "  crown,"  and  not  annexed  to  the  "  realm." 
The  sovereignty  of  Parliament  was  not  im 
plied  in  the  granting  of  the  charters  ;  Parlia 
ment  had  never  had  the  inspection  of  colonial 
acts,  for  the  king  alone  gave  his  consent  or  al 
lowance.  The  reply  denied  that  the  settlers, 


212  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

when  removing  to  America,  relinquished  any 
of  the  rights  of  British  subjects,  one  of  which 
was  to  be  governed  by  laws  made  by  per 
sons  in  whose  election  they  had  a  voice.  "  His 
excellency's  manner  of  reasoning  on  this  point 
seemed  to  them  to  render  the  most  valuable 
clauses  of  their  charter  unintelligible." 

The  paper  passed  on  to  a  consideration  of 
the  views  of  the  founders  of  New  England. 
From  Hutchinson's  own  declarations  in  his  his 
tory,  they  sought  here  to  make  good  their  case 
in  opposition  to  his  plea.  As  regarded  the  di 
lemma  proposed  by  the  governor,  that  if  Parlia 
ment  were  not  supreme  the  colonies  were  inde 
pendent,  the  alternative  was  accepted,  and  the 
claim  made  that,  since  the  vassalage  of  the  col 
onies  could  not  have  been  intended,  therefore 
they  must  be  independent.  There  cannot  be 
two  independent  legislatures  in  one  and  the 
same  state,  Hutchinson  had  urged.  Were  not 
the  colonies,  then,  by  their  charters  made  dif 
ferent  states  by  the  mother  country?  queried 
the  reply.  Although,  said  Hutchinson,  there 
may  be  but  one  head,  the  king,  yet  the  two  leg 
islative  bodies  will  make  two  governments  as 
distinct  as  the  kingdoms  of  England  and  Scot 
land  before  the  union.  Very  true,  may  it 
please  your  excellency,  was  the  answer;  and  if 
they  interfere  not  with  each  other,  what  hin- 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY.  213 

ders  their  living  happily  in  such  a  connection, 
mutually  supporting  and  protecting  each  other, 
united  under  one  common  sovereign  ?  As  to 
the  dangers  of  independence,  the  answer  states 
that  the  colonists  stand  in  far  more  fear  of  des 
potism  than  of  any  perils  which  could  come  to 
them  if  they  were  cut  loose.  The  Assembly 
discussed  the  paper  with  the  greatest  care, 
point  by  point.  At  length  it  passed,  and  Sam 
uel  Adams  himself,  at  the  head  of  the  com 
mittee,  put  the  document  into  the  hand  of 
Hutchinson. 

A  controversy  has  arisen,  which  need  not  be 
entered  into  here,  as  to  how  far  the  credit  of 
this  memorable  reply  belongs  to  any  one  man. 
That  Samuel  Adams  consulted  whoever  might 
be  able  to  give  him  help  is  certain,  and  he 
gained  much  from  the  suggestions  of  others. 
In  the  main,  however,  the  work  is  undoubtedly 
his.  Wide  as  is  the  range  of  reading  implied, 
it  was  not  beyond  him.  Devoted  heart  and  soul 
as  he  was  to  the  public  service,  there  were  few 
great  writers  upon  the  subject  of  politics,  an 
cient  or  modern,  with  whom  he  was  unac 
quainted.  Though  not  a  lawyer,  wherever 
law  touched  questions  of  state  he  was  at  home. 
Hutchinson  had  felt  that  his  message  was  irre 
futable.  The  reply  made  him  think  that  he 
had  perhaps  made  a  mistake  in  submitting  the 


214  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

matter  to  argument.  Heretofore  the  policy 
had  been  to  regard  the  matter  of  parliamen 
tary  supremacy  as  something  so  clear  that  it 
did  not  admit  of  discussion  ;  doubts  now  began 
to  arise  whether  it  had  been  wise  to  abandon 
this  policy.  But  it  was  too  late  to  withdraw. 
To  the  reply  of  the  House  he  opposed  a  rejoin 
der  longer  than  his  original  message,  adding 
little,  however,  to  its  strength.  When  the  As 
sembly,  through  Samuel  Adams,  met  this  also, 
the  indefatigable  governor  once  more  appeared. 
The  Council,  too,  by  the  hand  of  Bowdoin, 
took  part  in  the  controversy. 

The  patriots  published  the  debate,  pro  and 
con,  far  and  wide,  confident  that  their  side  had 
been  well  sustained.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
friends  of  government  in  England  and  America 
extolled  the  effort  of  Hutchinson,  and  found 
only  sophistry  in  the  argument  of  his  oppo 
nents.  Thurlow,  then  attorney-general,  found 
the  governor's  course  admirable,  and  Lord 
Mansfield,  whom  Hutchinson  met  in  England 
the  following  year,  passed  the  highest  encomi 
ums  upon  his  work. 

In  spite  of  commendation  from  such  high 
sources,  many  friends  of  the  government  disap 
proved  Hutchinson's  course.  They  felt,  says 
Grahame,  that  "  the  principles  solemnly  estab 
lished  by  the  crown  and  Parliament  were  un- 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY.  215 

hinged  and  degraded  by  the  presumptuous, 
argumentative  patronage  of  a  provincial  gov 
ernor."  Hutchinson  himself  was  ill  at  ease.  He 
wrote  Lord  Dartmouth  that  he  did  not  "  intend 
ever  to  meet  the  Assembly  again.  .  .  .  Your 
lordship  very  justly  observes  that  a  nice  dis 
tinction  upon  civil  rights  is  far  above  the  reach 
of  the  bulk  of  mankind  to  comprehend.  I  ex 
perience  the  truth  of  it  both  in  the  Council 
and  House  of  Representatives.  The  major  part 
of  them  are  incapable  of  those  nice  distinctions, 
and  are  in  each  house  too  ready  to  give  an  im 
plicit  faith  to  the  assertion  of  a  single  leader." 
As  one  reviews  the  strife  at  this  distance,  it 
may  be  said  that  both  sides  argued  well.  As 
far  as  precedents  went,  Hutchinson  certainly 
could  brace  himself  thoroughly.  For  centuries 
the  principles  of  the  primeval  liberty  had  un 
dergone  wide  perversion.  Kings  had  persisted, 
and  people  had  acquiesced  in  all  sorts  of  arbi 
trary  procedure.  The  first  charter,  intended 
only  for  a  trading  company,  had  been  put  to  a 
use  for  which  it  was  never  designed  in  being 
made  the  basis  of  a  great  body-politic.  In  the 
second  charter,  many  provisions  were  indefi 
nite.  The  relation  of  government  and  governed 
throughout  the  colonial  history  had  been  full 
of  quarreling.  It  was  often  hard  enough  to  say 
what  could  be  claimed,  what  rulers  and  people 


216  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

really  thought  or  intended.  A  good  basis  for 
Hutchinson's  argument  existed  in  the  British 
constitution  as  it  was.  Samuel  Adams  pre 
sented  that  constitution  rather  as  it  had  been 
before  the  ancient  freedom  had  been  overlaid ; 
as  it  should  be,  moreover,  and  as  it  tends  to  be 
come  in  these  later  days,  when  the  progress  of 
reform  gives  back  constantly  more  and  more  of 
the  old  Anglo-Saxon  liberty.1  Hutch inson  hon 
estly  felt  that  he  was  right ;  he  was  sustained 
by  many  of  the  best  Englishmen  of  his  day  ;  in 
fact,  at  the  present  time  Britons  of  the  highest 
position  and  intelligence  hold  the  same  conclu 
sions.  The  ideas  of  his  opponent,  however, 
are  those  higher  and  broader  ones  which  are  to 
rule  the  world  of  the  future. 

Before  the  session  ended,  the  House  through 
Samuel  Adams  contended  with  Hutchinson  as 
to  the  salaries  of  the  judges  of  the  Superior 
Court,  which,  like  that  of  the  governor,  it  had 
been  resolved  in  England  should  be  independ 
ent  of  the  Province.  The  prorogation  took 
place  on  the  6th  of  March. 

When  on  the  5th  of  March  the  anniversary 
of  the  Massacre  was  celebrated,  the  oration  be 
fore  the  crowded  auditory  in  the  Old  South 
was  delivered  by  the  brilliant  but  double-faced 
Benjamin  Church.  He  was  eloquent  and  seem- 

1  Freeman,  Growth  of  the  Eng.  Const- 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY.  217 

ingly  patriotic  ;  the  following  prophetic  pas 
sage  is  found  in  the  address  :  •'  Some  future 
Congress  will  be  the  glorious  source  of  the  sal 
vation  of  America.  The  Amphictyons  of 
Greece,  who  formed  the  diet  or  great  council 
of  the  states,  exhibit  an  excellent  model  for  the 
rising  Americans." 

'  Hutchinson  having  alleged  the  illegality  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  Boston  town-meeting,  \ 
which  established  the  Committee  of  Correspond 
ence/ and  considered  the  matter  of  the  salaries 
of  the  judges,  Samuel  Adams  was  chairman  of 
the  committee  to  reply.  "  By  an  unfortunate 
mistake,"  wrote  the  governor,  "  soon  after  the 
charter  a  law  passed  which  made  every  town 
in  the  Province  a  corporation  perfectly  demo 
cratic,  every  matter  being  determined  by  the 
major  vote  of  the  inhabitants ;  and  although 
the  intent  of  the  law  was  to  confine  their  pro 
ceedings  to  the  immediate  proceedings  of  the 
town,  yet  for  many  years  past  the  town  of 
Boston  has  been  used  to  interest  itself  in  every 
affair  of  moment  which  concerned  the  Province 
in  general." 

The  legislature  during  the  late  session  had 
been  so  thoroughly  occupied  by  the  controversy 
concerning  the  parliamentary  authority  that 
Samuel  Adams  had  found  no  opportunity  to 
develop  his  plan  of  Committees  of  Correspond- 


218  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ence  in  ways  tliat  lie  had  projected.  He  was 
of  course  not  sorry  to  have  circumstances  bring 
it  about  that  the  initiative  in  the  greater  work, 
the  binding  together  of  the  separate  colonies  as 
the  Massachusetts  towns  were  bound  together, 
was  taken  by  Virginia.  Early  in  March,  the 
House  of  Burgesses  debated  the  matter  of  an 
intercolonial  system  of  correspondence  ;  before 
the  middle  of  the  month  the  measure  had 
passed,  and  as  soon  after  as  the  slow  moving 
posts  of  those  days  could  bring  the  news,  the 
intelligence  reached  Massachusetts.  The  con 
troversy  as  to  whether  the  idea  of  intercolonial 
Committees  of  Correspondence  really  originated 
with  Samuel  Adams  is  hardly  worth  dwelling 
upon.  Indeed,  the  scheme  was  so  obvious  that 
doubtless  it  occurred  originally  to  many  persons. 
None,  however,  are  known  to  have  been  before 
Samuel  Adams  in  the  matter.  / 

That  the  special  action  of  the  House  of  Bur 
gesses  in  March,  1773,  came  to  pass  through 
Boston  incitement  is  a  matter  which  Virginia 
local  pride  would  no  doubt  strenuously  deny. 
Boston  claimed  it,  however. 

"  Our  patriots  say  that  the  votes  of  the  town  of 
Boston,  which  they  sent  to  Virginia,  have  produced 
the  resolves  of  the  Assembly  there,  appointing  a 
Committee  of  Correspondence,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
it  is  their  expectation  that  a  committee  for  the  same 


PARLIAMENTARY  AUTHORITY.  219 

purpose  will  be  appointed  by  most  of  the  other  As 
semblies  upon  the  continent."  1 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  secret  springs, 
the  news  of  the  Virginia  action  was  most 
warmly  welcomed.  The  General  Court  had 
adjourned,  but  the  Boston  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence  distributed  the  Southern  resolutions 
far  and  wide.  Samuel  Adams  at  once  testified 
his  joy,  in  a  letter  to  R.  H.  Lee ;  and  immedi 
ately  upon  the  convening  of  the  new  legisla 
ture,  to  which  he,  with  Hancock,  Gushing,  and 
Phillips,  had  been  elected  by  an  almost  unani 
mous  vote,  resolves  were  introduced  responding 
warmly  to  the  Southern  overtures  and  estab 
lishing  a  legislative  Committee  of  Correspond 
ence.  Fifteen  members  were  to  constitute  it, 
eight  of  them  forming  a  quorum.  Though 
Cashing  was  nominally  chairman,  Samuel  Ad 
ams  was  of  course  the  inspirer  and  chief  mover, 
as  he  also  was  of  the  Boston  committee.  In 
both  he  was  by  far  the  foremost  man,  fanning, 
as  it  were,  with  one  hand  the  fires  of  freedom 
already  alight  in  the  Massachusetts  towns,  and 
with  the  other  holding  the  torch  to  the  tinder 
piled  up  and  ready,  though  not  yet  kindled,  in 
the  slower  colonies,  until  at  last  the  whole  land 
was  brought  into  a  conflagration  of  discontent. 

1  Hutchinson,  manuscript  letter  in  Mass.  Archives,  April  19, 
1773. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS. 

IN  the  session  of  the  General  Court  which 
came  after  the  May  elections  of  1773,  the  gov 
ernor,  following  instructions,  signified  the  king's 
disapprobation  of  the  appointment  of  Com 
mittees  of  Correspondence,  which  sit  and  act 
during  the  recesses.  The  House  replied,  and 
Hutchinson  gives  in  his  history  a  summary  of 
their  argument.  It  is  strange,  when  he  was 
able  to  state  so  fairly  the  positions  of  his  oppo 
nents,  that  he  did  not  feel  more  strongly  the 
justice  of  those  positions.  The  House  said :  — 

"  When  American  rights  are  attacked  at  times  when 
the  several  Assemblies  are  not  sitting,  it  is  highly 
necessary  that  they  should  correspond,  in  order  to 
unite  in  the  most  effectual  means  to  obtain  redress  of 
grievances  ;  and  as  in  most  colonies  the  Assemblies 
sit  at  such  times  as  governors  who  hold  themselves 
under  the  direction  of  administration  think  fit,  it 
must  be  expected  that  the  intention  of  such  corre 
spondence  will  be  made  impracticable,  unless  com 
mittees  sit  in  the  recess.  The  crown  officers  had 


THE  I1UTCHINSON  LETTERS.  221 

corresponded  with  ministers  of  state  and  persons  of 
influence,  in  order  to  make  plans  for  a  policy  deemed 
grievous  by  the  colonists ;  it  ought  not  to  be  thought 
unreasonable  or  improper  for  the  colonists  to  corre 
spond  with  their  agents  as  well  as  each  other,  that 
their  grievances  might  be  explained  to  his  majesty, 
that  in  his  justice  he  might  afford  them  relief ;  and 
as  heretofore  the  Province  had  felt  the  displeasure  of 
their  sovereign  from  misrepresentations,  there  was 
room  to  apprehend  that  in  this  instance  he  had  been 
misinformed  by  such  persons  as  had  in  meditation 
further  measures  destructive  to  the  colonies,  and 
which  they  were  apprehensive  would  be  defeated  by 
means  of  Committees  of  Correspondence,  sitting  and 
acting  in  the  recess  of  the  respective  Assemblies." 

The  "  misinformation  "  conveyed  to  the  king 
by  persons  who  favored  "  measures  destructive 
to  the  colonies  "  was  a  matter  which  troubled 
the  patriots  not  a  little,  leading  in  the  summer 
of  1773  to  a  series  of  proceedings  on  their  part 
full  of  adroitness,  but  quite  irreconcilable,  one 
is  forced  to  admit,  with  fair  dealing.  The  con 
viction  had  long  prevailed  that  the  policy  of 
the  ministry  toward  America  was  suggested  by 
persons  residing  in  the  colonies,  who  studied  on 
the  spot  trie  course  of  events  and  the  temper  of 
the  people,  and  by  secret  correspondence  gave 
advice  which  led  to  obnoxious  acts.  Franklin 
at  length  obtained  possession  in  England  of 


222  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

certain  private  letters  from  Hutchinson,  An 
drew  Oliver,  the  lieutenant-governor,  Paxton, 
the  head  of  the  commissioners  of  customs,  and 
one  or  two  other  loyalists,  which  were  put  to 
an  extraordinary  use.  Precisely  how  Franklin 
obtained  the  letters  was  a  secret  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years.  Whether  his  course  was  al 
together  honorable  in  the  matter  need  not  be 
considered  here.  In  the  recriminations  that 
followed,  an  innocent  man  nearly  lost  his  life 
in  a  duel,  and  Franklin  himself,  after  having 
been  exposed  to  a  bitter  denunciation  by  Wed- 
derburn,  the  solicitor-general,  in  the  presence 
of  the  Privy  Council,  was  ostracised  by  English 
society. 

However  it  may  have  been  with  the  obtain 
ing  of  the  letters,  the  manner  in  which  they 
were  employed  to  bring  obloquy  upon  Hutch 
inson  really  admits  of  no  defense.  Less  than 
half  of  the  letters  were  from  Hutchinson ,  and 
in  these  not  a  sentence  can  be  found  inconsist 
ent  with  his  public  declarations,  or  expressing 
more  than  a  mild  disapproval  of  the  course  of 
the  Whigs.  His  conviction  that  Parliament 
should  be  supreme  in  the  colonies  is  apparent, 
but  this  he  had  a  thousand  times  asserted  be 
fore  the  world.  He  writes  in  no  unfriendly 
spirit,  and  makes  suggestions  remarkable  only 
for  their  great  moderation.  In  the  only  one  of 


THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS.      223 

the  six  letters  in  which  Hutchinson  trenches 
closely  upon  controverted  points,  his  expres 
sions,  copied  here  from  the  pamphlet  published 
by  the  Massachusetts  Assembly,  are  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  I  never  think  of  the  measures  necessary  for  the 
peace  and  good  order  of  the  colonies  without  pain  ; 
there  must  be  an  abridgment  of  what  are  called  Eng 
lish  liberties.  I  relieve  myself  by  considering  that 
in  a  remove  from  the  state  of  nature  to  the  most 
perfect  state  of  government,  there  must  be  a  great 
restraint  of  natural  liberty.  I  doubt  whether  it  is 
possible  to  project  a  system  of  government  in  which 
a  colony,  three  thousand  miles  distant  from  the  par 
ent  state,  shall  enjoy  all  the  liberty  of  the  parent 
state.  I  am  certain  I  have  never  yet  seen  the  pro 
jection." 

In   Hutchinson 's   own   defense,    he    says   of 

j 

these  words,  in  his  history :  — 

"  To  a  candid  mind,  the  substance  of  the  whole 
paragraph  was  really  no  more  than  this  :  *  I  am 
sorry  the  people  cannot  be  gratified  with  the  enjoy 
ment  of  all  they  call  English  liberties,  but  in  their 
sense  of  them  it  is  not  possible  for  a  colony  at  three 
thousand  miles'  distance  from  the  parent  state  to  en 
joy  them,  as  they  might  do  if  they  had  not  re 
moved.'  " 

In  no  way  does  the  governor  say  more  here 
than  he  had  repeatedly  said  in  public.  He 


224  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

makes  no  recommendation  that  the  charter 
should  be  changed,  or  troops  be  sent.  Such 
liberties  as  the  establishment  of  Committees  of 
Correspondence,  the  discussion  of  great  affairs 
of  state  by  the  town-meetings,  the  resistance 
to  the  ministerial  policy  in  the  matter  of  the 
payment  of  the  judges  and  the  crown  officials, 
Hutchinson  felt,  and  in  the  most  open  manner 
had  said,  ought  to  be  abridged.  These,  in  his 
idea,  were  excesses,  but  they  could  be  remedied 
without  touching  the  charter.  He  was  undoubt 
edly  wrong,  of  course,  but  there  was  nothing 
underhanded  in  his  fight.  He  declares  further 
that  he  wishes  well  to  the  colony,  and  therefore 
desires  an  abridgment  of  its  liberty,  and  that 
he  hopes  no  more  severity  will  be  shown  than 
is  necessary  to  secure  its  dependence. 

As  to  the  other  letters  sent  by  Franklin  at 
the  same  time  with  those  of  Hutchinson,  there 
is  no  reason  at  all  for  supposing  that  the  lat 
ter  had  known  anything  about  them.  Oliver 
goes  farther  than  the  governor :  he  recommends 
changes  in  the  constitution,  hints  at  taking  off 
the  "  principal  incendiaries,"  and  proposes  the 
formation  of  a  colonial  aristocracy  from  whom 
the  Council  shall  be  drawn.  Paxton  demands 
plainly  "  two  or  three  regiments."  Oliver  and 
Paxton  did  say  enough  to  compromise  them 
selves,  but  they  were  comparatively  small  game, 


THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS.       225 

about  whom  the  patriots  cared  little.  We  have 
now  to  see  what  was  made  out  of  these  letters. 
For  some  months  they  remained  in  the  hands 
of  the  patriots  unused.  In  June,  however,  soon 
after  the  governor's  return  from  Hartford, 
where  he  had  been  concerned  with  the  settle 
ment  of  the  boundary  line  between  New  York 
and  Massachusetts,  a  public  service  which 
he  skillfully  turned  much  to  the  advantage  of 
the  Province,  Hancock  informed  the  Assembly 
darkly  that  within  eight-and-forty  hours  a  dis 
covery  would  be  made,  which  would  have  great 
results.  This  the  spectators  in  James  Otis's 
gallery  caught  up,  and  it  was  spread  through 
out  the  town  and  the  Province.  At  the  time 
named,  Samuel  Adams  desired  that  the  gal 
leries  might  be  cleared,  as  he  had  matters  of 
profound  moment  to  communicate.  After  the 
clearing,  he  spoke  of  a  prevailing  rumor  that 
letters  of  an  extraordinary  nature  had  been 
written  and  sent  to  England,  greatly  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  Province.  He  added  that  he 
had  obtained  the  letters  and  the  consent  of  the 
person  who  had  received  them  to  their  being 
read  to  the  House,  under  the  restriction,  how 
ever,  that  they  were  neither  to  be  printed  nor 
copied,  in  whole  or  part.  The  letters  were 
then  read.  After  the  reading,  amid  these  mys 
terious  surroundings,  a  committee  reported,  the 
15 


226  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

letters  being  lumped  together,  that  they  tended 
and  were  designed  to  overthrow  the  constitution 
of  government  and  to  introduce  arbitrary  power 
into  the  Province.  The  report  was  accepted  al 
most  unanimously.  These  proceedings  were 
spread  abroad,  and  the  curiosity  of  the  people 
became  wonderfully  roused  as  to  what  the 
dreadful  letters  contained.  This  temper  of 
mind  wTas  stimulated  by  rollings  of  the  eyes 
and  raisings  of  the  hands  on  the  part  of  the 
Whig  leaders  over  the  enormities  which  could 
not  be  spoken. 

Hutchinson  did  not  prorogue  the  Court,  which 
would  have  looked  like  an  attempt  on  his  part 
to  smother  the  subject,  indicative  of  conscious 
ness  of  guilt ;  but  he  sent  a  message  asking 
for  copies  of  the  letters,  declaring  that  he  had 
never  written  letters,  public  or  private,  of  any 
such  character  as  was  reported.  The  House  re 
plied  by  sending  him  the  dates,  and  asking  him 
for  copies  of  his  letters  written  on  those  dates. 
Hutchinson  declined  to  send  the  copies,  on  the 
ground  that  there  would  be  an  impropriety  in 
laying  before  them  his  private  correspondence, 
and  that  he  was  restrained  by  the  king  from 
showing  that  of  a  public  nature.  But  he  said 
that  he  could  assure  them  that  neither  private 
nor  public  letters  of  his  u  tended,  or  were  de 
signed  to  subvert,  but  rather  to  preserve  entire 


THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS.  227 

the  constitution  of  the  government."  He  de 
clared  that  his  letters,  of  the  dates  mentioned 
by  the  House,  contained  nothing  different  from 
what  had  been  published  in  his  speeches  to 
the  Assembly,  as  well  as  to  the  world  in  his 
history,  and  that  none  of  them  related  to  the 
charter.  ***t 

The  popular  pressure  to  know  more  of  the 
direful  discoveries  became  very  earnest.  Han 
cock  at  length  told  the  House  that  copies  of 
the  letters  had  been  put  into  his  hands  in  the 
street.  These  were  found  upon  comparison  to 
correspond  with  the  letters  in  possession  of  the 
House,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  con 
sider  how  the  House  might  become  "honora 
bly  "  possessed  of  the  letters,  so  that  they  could 
be  published.  Hawley  soon  reported  from  this 
committee  that  Samuel  Adams  had  said  that, 
since  copies  of  the  letters  were  already  abroad, 
the  gentleman  from  whom  the  letters  them 
selves  were  received  gave  his  consent  that  they 
should  be  copied  and  printed.  The  legislature 
then  ordered  that  the  letters  should  be  printed ; 
but  beforehand,  with  very  Yankee  cunning, 
they  took  pains  to  circulate  everywhere  their 
resolves.  These  resolves,  putting  as  they  did 
the  worst  construction  upon  the  letters,  declar 
ing  that  they  tended  to  alienate  the  affections 
of  the  king,  to  produce  severe  and  destructive 


228  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

measures,  and  that  they  contained  proofs  of  a 
conspiracy  against  the  country,  went  to  all  the 
towns.  As  if  Hutchinson  had  been  privy  to,  if 
not  the  author  of  all  the  letters,  the  implication 
was  that  it  was  right  to  hold  him  responsible 
for  everything  they  contained.  The  towns  be 
came  prepossessed  with  the  darkest  anticipa 
tions. 

The  printed  letters  were  at  length  allowed  to 
go  forth.  In  the  popular  excitement,  and  in 
fluenced  by  the  interpretation  which  had  been 
given  to  them,  the  people  universally  saw  abom 
inable  treachery  in  what  was  really  harmless. 
In  the  midst  of  the  rage  against  the  governor, 
a  petition  for  his  removal  and  that  of  Oliver 
was  dispatched  by  the  legislature  to  Franklin, 
to  be  presented  to  the  ministry.  The  rough 
draft  of  this  petition,  in  the  hand  of  Samuel 
Adams,  runs  as  follows  :  — 

PETITION    TO    THE    KING. 

June  23,  1773. 

Nothing  but  a  Sense  of  the  Duty  we  owe  to  our 
Sovereign  and  the  obligation  we  are  under  to  consult 
the  Peace  and  Safety  of  the  Province  could  induce 
us  to  remonstrate  to  your  Majesty  the  Malconduct  of 
those  who,  having  been  born  and  educated  and  con 
stantly  resident  in  the  Province  and  who  formerly 
have  had  ye  confidence  and  were  loaded  with  ye  hon 
ours  of  this  People,  your  Majesty,  we  conceive  from 


THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS.  229 

the  purest  Motives  of  rendering  the  People  most 
happy,  was  graciously  pleased  to  advance  to  the  high 
est  places  of  Trust  and  Authority  in  the  Province. 
.  .  .  We  do  therefore  most  humbly  beseech  your 
Majesty  to  give  order  that  Time  may  be  allowed  to 
us  to  support  these  our  Complaints  by  our  Agents 
and  Council.  And  as  the  said  Thomas  Hutchinson, 
Esq.,  and  Andrew  Oliver,  Esq.,  have  by  their  above 
mentioned  Conduct  and  otherwise  rendered  themselves 
justly  obnoxious  to  your  Majesty's  loving  Subjects, 
we  pray  that  your  Majesty  will  be  graciously  pleased 
to  remove  them  from  their  posts  in  this  government, 
and  place  such  good  and  faithfull  men  in  their  stead 
as  your  Majesty  in  your  great  Wisdom  shall  think  fit. 

This  transaction,  which  has  been  dwelt  on  at 
considerable  length,  deserves  attention  because 
it  is  probably  the  least  defensible  proceeding 
in  which  the  patriots  of  New  England  were 
concerned  during  the  Revolutionary  struggle. 
Nothing  can  be  more  sly  than  the  manoau- 
vring  throughout.  The  end  aimed  at,  to  excite 
against  Hutchinson  the  strongest  animosity  at 
a  time  when  his  management  of  the  controversy 
as  to  parliamentary  authority  had  made  an 
impression  of  ability,  and  his  service  in  settling 
the  boundary  line  so  satisfactorily  might  have 
conciliated  some  good-will,  was  completely  suc 
cessful.  His  position  was  henceforth  intoler 
able.  When  one  reads  at  this  distance  of  time 


230  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

the  little  pamphlet  containing  the  letters,  which 
the  General  Court  caused  to  be  published,  one 
sees  plainly  the  justice  of  the  remark  of  Dr. 
George  E.  Ellis :  "  The  whole  affair  is  a  mar- 
velously  strong  illustration  of  the  most  vehe 
ment  possible  cry,  with  the  slightest  possible 
amount  of  wool." 

Without  this  means  of  forming  a  judgment 
for  ourselves,  Hutchinson's  statements  as  to  the 
matter  would  require  to  be  taken  with  much 
allowance.  View  them  in  connection  with  this 
plain  evidence,  however,  and  they  have  great 
weight,  and  it  is  hard  to  resist  the  conviction 
that  the  man  was  deeply  injured.  He  said : 
"  They  [the  letters]  have  been  represented  as 
highly  criminal,  though  there  is  nothing  more 
than  what  might  naturally  be  expected  from  a 
confidential  correspondence."  l  Again  he  de 
clared  them  to  be  "  the  most  innocent  things  in 
the  world ;  but  if  it  had  been  Chevy  Chace,  the 
leaders  are  so  adroit  they  would  have  made  the 
people  believe  it  was  full  of  evil  and  treason."  2 
The  following  letter,  written  a  little  later  in 
the  year,  copied  here  from  Hutchinson's  letter- 
book,  contains  a  clear  and  manly  statement :  — 

"  I  differ  in  my  principles  from  the  present  leaders 
of  the  people.  ...  I  think  that  by  the  constitution 

1  From  Hutchinson's  manuscript,  Mass.  Archiv. 

2  From  manuscript  in  Mass.  Archiv. 


THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS.      231 

of  the  colonies  the  Parliament  has  a  supreme  author 
ity  over  them.  I  have  nevertheless  always  been  an 
advocate  for  as  large  a  power  of  legislation  within 
each  colony  as  can  consist  with  a  supreme  controul. 
I  have  declared  against  a  forcible  opposition  to  the 
execution  of  acts  of  Parliament  which  have  laid  taxes 
on  the  people  of  America ;  I  have  notwithstanding 
ever  wished  that  such  acts  might  not  be  made  as  the 
Stamp  Act  in  particular.  I  have  done  everything  in 
my  power  that  they  might  be  repealed.  I  do  not  see 
how  the  people  in  the  colonies  can  enjoy  every  lib 
erty  which  the  people  in  England  enjoy,  because  in 
England  every  man  may  be  represented  in  Parlia 
ment,  the  supreme  authority  over  the  whole  ;  but  in 
the  colonies,  the  people,  I  conceive,  cannot  have  rep 
resentatives  in  Parliament  to  any  advantage.  It  gives 
me  pain  when  I  think  it  must  be  so.  I  wish  also 
that  we  may  enjoy  every  priviledge  of  an  English 
man  which  our  remote  situation  will  admit  of.  These 
are  sentiments  which  I  have  without  reserve  declared 
among  my  private  friends,  in  my  speeches  and  mes 
sages  to  the  General  Court,  in  my  correspondence 
with  the  ministers  of  state,  and  I  have  published 
them  to  the  world  in  my  history  ;  and  yet  I  have  been 
declared  an  enemy  and  a  traitor  to  my  country  be 
cause  in  my  private  letters  I  have  discovered  the 
same  sentiments,  for  everything  else  asserted  to  be 
contained  in  those  letters,  I  mean  of  mine,  unfriendly 
to  the  country,  I  must  deny  as  altogether  groundless 
and  false." 

On  a  fly-leaf  of  his  diary  two  years  later, 


232  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

after  quoting  a  sentence  from  Erasmus  as  to  the 
injustice  of  garbled  quotations  from  a  man's 
words,  lie  continues  :  "  How  applicable  is  this 
to  the  case  of  my  letters  to  Whately,  and  the 
expression,  'there  must  be  an  abridgment  of 
what  are  called  English  liberties ! '  Every 
thing  which  preceded  and  followed,  which 
would  have  given  the  real  sentiment  and  taken 
away  all  the  odium,  was  left  out." 

It  is  hard  to  palliate  the  conduct  of  the  pa 
triots.  Had  the  leaders  lost  in  the  excitement 
of  the  controversies  the  power  of  weighing 
words  properly,  and  did  they  honestly  think 
Hutchinson's  expressions  deserved  such  an  in 
terpretation  ?  Did  they  honestly  believe  that 
it  was  right  to  hold  him  responsible  for  what 
Oliver  and  Paxton  had  said?  Unfortunately 
there  is  some  testimony  to  show  that  their  con 
duct  was  due  to  deliberate  artifice.  Says  their 
victim  :  — 

"When  some  of  the  governor's  friends  urged  to 
the  persons  principally  concerned  .  .  .  the  unwar- 
rantableness  of  asserting  or  insinuating  what  they 
knew  to  be  false  and  injurious,  they  justified  them 
selves  from  the  necessity  of  the  thing;  the  public 
interest,  the  safety  of  the  people,  making  it  abso 
lutely  necessary  that  his  weight  and  influence  among 
them  should  by  any  means  whatever  be  destroyed." 

Further,  if   Hutchinson's   testimony   in    his 


THE  HUTCU1NSON  LETTERS.  233 

own  case  is  not  to  be  received,  what  are  we  to 
say  of  Franklin's  suspicious  hint,  who,  in  trans 
mitting  the  letters,  counsels  the  use  of  mystery 
and  manoeuvring,  that,  "  as  distant  objects  seen 
only  through  a  mist  appear  larger,  the  same 
may  happen  from  the  mystery  in  this  case."  l 
There  never  were  cooler  heads  than  stood  on 
the  shoulders  of  some  of  those  leaders  ;  it  is 
impossible  to  think  that  they  were  blinded. 

The  complicity  of  Samuel  Adams  with  the 
whole  affair  is  unmistakable.  His  name  occurs 
constantly  in  the  course  of  the  proceedings  ;  his 
ascendency  among  the  Whigs  at  the  moment 
was  at  its  highest.  "  Master  of  the  puppets,'* 
his  writhing  adversary  calls  him,  while  also  de 
claring  that  through  some  kind  of  evil  sorcery 
many  of  the  representatives,  in  spite  of  them 
selves,  were  made  by  him  to  vote  against  their 
will  and  judgment.  The  whole  transaction  has 
a  more  than  questionable  color,  and  though  pa 
triotic  historians  and  biographers  have  been 
able  to  see  nothing  in  it  except,  so  to  speak,  a 
dove-like  iridescence,  an  unprejudiced  judge  will 
detect  the  scaly  gleam  of  a  creature  in  better 
repute  for  his  wisdom  than  his  harmlessness. 
Dr.  Johnson  might  have  folded  Hutchinson 
and  Samuel  Adams  to  his  burly  breast  in  an 

1  G.  E.  Ellis,  Atlantic  Monthly,  May,  1884,  p.  672  ;  also,  Cur- 
wen's  Jour.,  App.,  art.  "  Hutchinson."  I  cannot,  however,  find 
the  letter  to  Cooper  in  which  this  passage  is  said  to  occur. 


234  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ecstasy,  such  thoroughly  good  haters  of  one 
another  were  they.  It  is  hard  to  say  what  the 
casuistry  was  which  enabled  the  Puritan  poli 
tician,  upright  though  he  was,  to  make  crooked 
treatment  of  his  Tory  bete  noir  square  with  his 
sense  of  right.  Apparently  he  felt  that  Hutch- 
inson  was  the  devil,  who  might  rightly  be  fought 
with  his  own  fire. 

Besides  the  controversy  over  the  letters  sent 
by  Franklin,  the  House,  in  the  summer  session 
of  1773,  discussed  the  independency  of  the 
judges  of  the  Superior  Court.  A  series  of  re 
solves  was  passed  demanding  of  those  officers 
whether  they  would  receive  the  grants  of  the 
Assembly  or  accept  their  support  from  the 
crown,  and  making  it  the  indispensable  duty 
of  "the  Commons  "  of  the  Province  to  impeach 
them  before  the  governor  and  Council  if  their 
reply  should  be  delayed.  Hutchinson  upon  this 
at  once  prorogued  the  House.  The  term  "  the 
Commons  "  had  only  lately  been  applied  to  the 
Assembly.  Says  Hutchinson  :  — 

"  Mr.  Adams  would  not  neglect  even  small  circum 
stances.  In  four  or  five  years  a  great  change  had 
been  made  in  the  language  of  the  general  Assembly. 
That  which  used  to  be  called  the  '  court-house,'  or 
'  town-house,'  had  acquired  the  name  of  the  '  state- 
house  ; '  the  '  House  of  Representatives  of  Massachu 
setts  Bay/  had  assumed  the  name  of  *  his  majesty's 


THE  HUTCHINSON  LETTERS.       235 

Commons ; '  the  debates  of  the  Assembly  are  styled 
'  parliamentary  debates  ; '  acts  of  Parliament,  '  acts  of 
the  British  Parliament ; '  the  Province  laws,  '  the  laws 
of  the  land  ; '  the  charter,  a  grant  from  royal  grace  or 
favor,  is  styled  the  'compact;'  and  now  'impeach'  is 
used  for  '  complain,'  and  the  '  House  of  Representa 
tives  '  are  made  analogous  to  the  '  commons,'  and  the 
'  Council '  to  the  '  Lords,'  to  decide  in  case  of  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors." 

Townshend's  revenue  act  of  1767,  by  which 
a  tax  was  laid  upon  painters'  colors,  glass,  paper, 
and  tea,  was  passed  less  for  the  sake  of  gaining 
a  revenue  than  for  maintaining  the  abstract 
right  of  taxation.  The  yield  had  been  from 
the  first  quite  insignificant,  and  as  has  been 
seen,  the  tax  was  now  entirely  repealed,  ex 
cept  upon  the  single  article  of  tea.  In  the  ham 
pered  commerce  of  that  time,  duties  were  lev 
ied  upon  articles  both  when  exported  and  when 
imported.  In  the  present  case  the  duty  upon 
tea  exported  from  England  was  taken  off,  and 
threepence  a  pound  was  assigned  as  the  impost 
to  be  paid  on  the  importation  into  America. 
As  the  export  duties  to  be  removed  were  far 
larger  than  this  import  duty,  the  tea  could  be 
sold  for  a  price  considerably  lower  than  hereto 
fore.  A  double  benefit  was  hoped  for,  —  that 
the  Americans,  won  by  cheap  tea,  might  be 
brought  to  acquiesce  in  a  tax  levied  by  Parlia- 


236  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ment,  and  also  that  the  prosperity  of  the  impor 
tant  East  India  Company  would  be  furthered, 
which  for  some  time  past,  owing  to  the  colonial 
non-importation  agreements,  had  been  obliged 
to  see  its  tea  accumulate  in  its  warehouses,  until 
the  amount  reached  17,000,000  pounds.  The 
project  was  Lord  North's,  and  passed  Parlia 
ment  in  May,  by  a  large  majority. 

Samuel  Adams,  forever  alert,  saw  the  danger 
in  a  moment,  and  was  ready  with  his  expedient. 
Steps  must  be  forthwith  taken  for  a  closer  bond 
among  the  colonies,  "  after  the  plan  first  pro 
posed  by  Virginia."  A  congress  of  delegates, 
to  meet  at  some  central  point,  must  be  arranged 
for ;  it  was  time  for  the  representatives  of  the 
colonies  to  come  together  face  to  face.  The 
credit  of  originating  the  idea  of  a  continental 
congress  belongs  to  Franklin,  who  in  1754 
brought  about  the  congress  at  Albany.  Its 
main  object  then,  however,  had  been  to  take 
measures  for  a  united  resistance  against  the 
French.  The  Stamp  Act  congress,  ten  years 
later,  suggested  in  Samuel  Adams's  often  re 
ferred  to  "instructions"  of  that  year,  was  the 
first  meeting  of  colonial  delegates  to  resist  Eng 
land.  In  1766,  '68,  '70,  and  '71,  we  find  him 
pushing  measures  looking  toward  union  ;  now 
in  1773  he  is  outspoken  and  urgent.  His  posi 
tion  in  the  leading  colony  gave  him  an  oppor- 


THE  HUTCH  1NSON  LETTERS.  237 

tunity  to  work  effectively,  such  as  others  else 
where  did  not  possess.  When  in  July  of  this 
year  Franklin  wrote  to  Gushing  from  London 
suggesting  a  congress,  Samuel  Adams  had  al 
ready  hinted  at  it  strongly  in  the  preceding 
January,  and  Church  in  his  oration  on  the  5th 
of  March  had  uttered  the  prophetic  passage 
that  has  been  quoted. 

Samuel  Adams  urged  during  the  present 
summer,  in  a  series  of  essays  in  the  "  Boston 
Gazette,"  the  project  of  a  congress  as  the  only 
salvation  of  the  country.  Though  Hutchin- 
son  was  under  obloquy,  the  cause  of  the  Whigs 
was  far  from  being  in  a  satisfactory  condition. 
Many  were  tired  of  controversy.  Gushing,  for 
instance,  who  had  been  addressed  directly  by 
Dartmouth,  the  colonial  secretary,  favored  a 
submissive  policy,  believing  that  grievances 
would  be  redressed,  "  if  these  high  points  about 
the  supreme  authority  of  Parliament  were  to 
fall  asleep."  Such  laxness  Samuel  Adams  tried 
hard  to  counteract.  Lord  Dartmouth  to  be 
sure  was  thoroughly  well-meaning.  His  marked 
religious  character,  unusual  among  men  of  his 
station,  made  him  acceptable  to  the  New  Eng- 
landers.  He  proposed  that  there  should  be 
mutual  concessions.  Only  submit  and  you 
shall  be  treated  most  graciously,  was  his  tone. 
But  Samuel  Adams  opposed  with  all  his  might. 


238  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

At  length,  as  "  Observation"  in  the  "  Boston 
Gazette,"  September  27,  1773,  Samuel  Adams 
wrote :  — 

"  The  very  important  dispute  between  Britain  and 
America  has,  for  a  long  time,  employed  the  pens  of 
statesmen  in  both  countries,  but  no  plan  of  union  is 
yet  agreed  on  between  them ;  the  dispute  still  con 
tinues,  and  everything  floats  in  uncertainty.  As  I 
have  long  contemplated  the  subject  with  fixed  atten 
tion,  I  beg  leave  to  offer  a  proposal  to  my  country 
men,  namely,  that  a  CONGRESS  OF  AMERICAN  STATES 
be  assembled  as  soon  as  possible ;  draw  up  a  Bill  of 
Rights,  and  publish  it  to  the  world  ;  choose  an  am 
bassador  to  reside  at  the  British  Court  to  act  for  the 
united  Colonies  ;  appoint  where  the  Congress  shall 
annually  meet,  and  how  it  may  be  summoned  upon 
any  extraordinary  occasion,  what  farther  steps  are 
necessary  to  be  taken,j&e." 

Three  weeks  later,  October  11,  in  the  "  Ga 
zette  "  appeared  the  following :  — 

"  But  the  Question  will  be  asked,  —  How  shall  the 
Colonies  force  their  Oppressors  to  proper  Terms  ? 
This  Question  has  been  often  answered  already  by  our 
Politicians,  viz  :  «  Form  an  Independent  State,'  '  AN 
AMERICAN  COMMONWEALTH/  This  Plan  has  been 
proposed,  and  I  can't  find  that  any  other  is  likely  to 
answer  the  great  Purpose  of  preserving  our  Liberties. 
I  hope,  therefore,  it  will  be  well  digested  and  for 
warded,  to  be  in  due  Time  put  into  Execution,  un 
less  our  Political  Fathers  can  secure  American  Liber- 


THE  HUT  CHIN  SON  LETTERS.  239 

ties  in  some  other  Way.  As  the  Population,  Wealth, 
and  Power  of  this  Continent  are  swiftly  increasing, 
we  certainly  have  no  Cause  to  doubt  of  our  Success 
in  maintaining  Liberty  by  forming  a  Commonwealth, 
or  whatever  Measure  Wisdom  may  point  out  for  the 
Preservation  of  the  Rights  of  America." 

The  legislative  committee  of  correspondence 
had  heretofore  done  little.  Samuel  Adams, 
who  by  means  of  the  Boston  committee  had 
largely  re-invigorated  the  spirit  of  liberty  in  the 
Province,  now  set  the  other  agency  at  work, 
that  a  similar  spirit  might  be  sent  throughout 
the  thirteen  colonies.  It  was  necessary  that 
Gushing,  who,  as  speaker,  was  ex  officio  chair 
man  of  the  committee,  should  sign  the  mani 
festo.  Hutchinson's  term  "  the  puppets,"  of 
whom  Samuel  Adams  was  said  to  be  the  mas 
ter,  was  perhaps  more  applicable  to  Gushing 
than  to  some  of  his  fellows.  By  a  skillful  touch 
of  the  master's  fingers,  the  respectable  wooden 
personality  that  did  duty  as  the  legislative  fig 
ure-head,  responded  to  his  wire  and  danced  to 
the  patriot  measure.  The  document  is  wise, 
moderate,  thoroughly  appreciative  of  the  cir 
cumstances  of  the  hour. 

"  We  are  far  from  desiring,"  thus  the  paper  con 
cluded,  "  that  the  Connection  between  Britain  arid 
America  should  be  broken.  Esto  perpetua  is  our  ar 
dent  wish,  but  upon  the  Terms  only  of  Equal  Liberty. 


240  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

If  we  cannot  establish  an  Agreement  upon  these 
terms,  let  us  leave  it  to  another  and  a  wiser  Genera 
tion.  But  it  may  be  worth  Consideration,  that  the 
work  is  more  likely  to  be  well  done  at  a  time  when 
the  Ideas  of  Liberty  and  its  Importance  are  strong  in 
men's  minds.  There  is  Danger  that  these  Ideas  may 
grow  faint  and  languid.  Our  Posterity  may  be 
accustomed  to  bear  the  Yoke,  and  being  inured  to 
Servility,  they  may  even  bow  the  Shoulder  to  the 
Burden.  It  can  never  be  expected  that  a  people, 
however  numerous,  will  form  and  execute  as  wise 
plans  to  perpetuate  their  Liberty,  when  they  have 
lost  the  Spirit  and  feeling  of  it." 

The  document  was  of  course  written  by  Mr. 
Adams,  and  the  selection  given  is  copied  from 
his  autograph. 

Hutchinson  now  wrote  to  Dartmouth  a  letter 
containing  the  following  passage.  Speaking  of 
the  Whigs  he  said  :  — 

"  They  have  for  their  head  one  of  the  members 
from  Boston,  who  was  the  first  person  that  openly, 
in  any  public  assembly,  declared  for  absolute  independ 
ence,  and  who,  from  a  natural  obstinacy  of  temper, 
and  from  many  years'  practice  in  politics,  is,  perhaps, 
as  well  qualified  to  excite  the  people  to  any  extrava 
gance  in  theory  or  practice  as  any  person  in  America. 
From  large  defalcations,  as  collector  of  taxes  for  the 
town  of  Boston,  and  other  acts  in  pecuniary  matters, 
his  influence  was  small  until  within  these  seven  years ; 
but  since  that,  it  has  been  gradually  increasing,  until 


TEE  HUTCHINSON  LETTEtSfi. 


241 

J    te 

he  has  obtained  such  an  ascendency  as  to  Direct  the 
town  of  Boston  and  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  consequently  the  Council,  just  as  he  pleases.  A 
principle  has  been  avowed  by  some  who  are  attached 
to  him,  the  most  inimical  that  can  be  devised,  that  in 
political  matters  the  public  good  is  above  all  other 
considerations ;  and  every  rule  of  morality,  when  in 
competition  with  it,  may  very  well  be  dispensed  with. 
Upon  this  principle,  the  whole  proceeding,  with  re 
spect  to  the  letters  of  the  governor  and  lieutenant- 
governor,  of  which  he  was  the  chief  conductor,  has 
been  vindicated.  In  ordinary  affairs,  the  counsels  of 
the  whole  opposition  unite.  Whenever  there  appears 
a  disposition  to  any  conciliatory  measures,  this  person, 
by  his  art  and  skill,  prevents  any  effect ;  sometimes 
by  exercising  his  talents  in  the  newspapers,  an  in 
stance  of  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  given  in 
the  paper  enclosed  to  your  lordship  in  my  letter, 
number  twenty-seven,  at  other  times  by  an  open  op 
position,  and  this  sometimes  in  the  House,  where  he 
has  defeated  every  attempt  as  often  as  any  has  been 
made.  But  his  chief  dependence  is  upon  a  Boston 
town-meeting,  where  he  originates  his  measures, 
which  are  followed  by  the  rest  of  the  towns,  and  of 
course  are  adopted  or  justified  by  the  Assembly. 

"  I  could  mention  to  your  lordship  many  instances 
of  the  like  kind.  To  his  influence  it  has  been  chiefly 
owing,  that  when  there  has  been  a  repeal  of  acts  of 
Parliament  complained  of  as  grievous,  and  when  any 
concessions  have  been  made  to  the  Assembly,  as  the 
removal  of  it  to  Boston  and  the  like,  (notwithstanding 
16 


242  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

the  professions  made  beforehand  by  the  moderate 
part  of  the  opposition,  that  such  measures  would  quiet 
the  minds  of  the  people,)  he  has  had  art  enough  to 
improve  them  to  raise  the  people  higher  by  assuring 
them,  if  they  will  but  persevere,  they  may  bring  the 
nation  to  their  own  terms  ;  and  the  people  are  more 
easily  induced  to  a  compliance  from  the  declaration 
made,  that  they  are  assured  by  one  or  two  gentlemen 
in  England,  on  whose  judgment  they  can  depend, 
that  nothing  more  than  a  firm  adhesion  to  their  de 
mands  is  necessary  to  obtain  a  compliance  with  every 
one  of  them.  Could  he  have  been  made  dependent, 
I  am  not  sure  that  he  might  not  have  been  taken  off 
by  an  appointment  to  some  public  civil  office.  But, 
as  the  constitution  of  the  Province  is  framed,  such  an 
appointment  would  increase  his  abilities,  if  not  his 
disposition  to  do  mischief,  for  he  well  knows  that  I 
have  not  a  Council  which  in  any  case  would  consent 
to  his  removal,  and  nobody  can  do  more  than  he  to 
prevent  my  ever  having  such  a  Council." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  TEA-PARTY. 

THE  colonies  generally  were  resolved  not  to 
receive  the  tea.  Resolutions  were  adopted  in 
Philadelphia,  October  18,  requesting  the  agents 
of  the  East  India  Company,  who  were  to  sell 
the  tea,  to  resign,  which  they  did.  Boston  at 
once  followed  the  example.  Acting  upon  the 
precedent  of  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act,  when 
Oliver,  the  stamp  commissioner,  had  resigned 
his  commission  under  the  Liberty  Tree,  a  plac 
ard  was  posted  everywhere  on  the  3d  of  No 
vember,  inviting  the  people  of  Boston  and  the 
neighboring  towns  to  be  present  at  Liberty 
Tree  that  day  at 'noon,  to  witness  the  resigna 
tion  of  the  consignees  of  the  tea,  and  hear  them 
swear  to  re-ship  to  London  what  teas  should  ar 
rive.  The  placard  closed,  — 

u  Jlii^Show  me  the  man  that  dares  take  this 
down." 

At  the  time  appointed,  representatives  Ad 
ams,  Hancock,  and  Phillips,  the  selectmen  and 
town  clerk,  with  about  five  hundred  more,  were 


244  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

^.present  at  the  Liberty  Tree.  But  no  consign 
ees  arrived,  whereupon  Molineux  and  Warren 
headed  a  party  who  waited  upon  them.  The 
consignees,  Clarke,  a  rich  merchant,  and  his 
sons,  Benjamin  Faneuil,  Winslow,  and  the  two 
sons  of  Hutchinson,  Thomas  and  Elisha,  sat  to 
gether  in  the  counting-house  of  Clarke  in  King 
'Street.  Admittance  was  refused  the  commit 
tee,  and  a  conversation  took  place  through  a 
window,  during  which  the  tone  of  the  con 
signees  was  defiant.  There  was  some  talk  of 
violence,  and  when  an  attempt  was  made  to 
exclude  the  committee  and  the  crowd  attending 
them  from  the  building,  into  the  first  story  of 
which  they  had  penetrated,  the  doors  were 
taken  off  their  hinges  and  threats  uttered. 
Molineux,  generally  impetuous  enough,  but 
now  influenced  probably  by  cooler  heads,  dis 
suaded  the  others  from  violence.  A  few  days 
later,  a  serious  riot  came  near  taking  place  be 
fore  the  house  of  Clarke  in  School  Street ;  the 
people  outside  broke  some  windows,  while  from 
the  inside  a  pistol  was  fired  from  the  second 
story.  Judicious  men  among  the  patriots,  how 
ever,  exerted  themselves  successfully  to  prevent 
a  repetition  of  the  excesses  at  the  time  of  the 
Stamp  Act. 

A  town-meeting  on  November  5,  in  which 
an  effort  of  the  Tories  to  make  head  against 


THE   TEA-PARTY.  245 

the  popular  feeling  came  to  naught,  showed 
how  overwhelming  was  the  determination  to 
oppose  the  introduction  of  the  tea.  Precisely 
how  the  plans  were  organized  —  precisely  who 
many  of  the  actors  were  in  the  few  eventful 
weeks  that  remained  of  1773,  can  now  never 
be  known.  A  frequent  meeting-place  was  the 
room  over  the  printing-office  of  Edes  &  Gill, 
near  the  corner  of  Court  Street  and  Cornhill. 
Samuel  Adams,  never  more  fully  the  master 
than  during  these  lowering  autumn  and  winter 
days  when  such  a  crisis  was  encountered,  was 
often  at  the  printing  office ;  and  there  and  at 
meetings  of  the  North  End  Club  much  was  ar 
ranged.  No  voice  needs  to  speak  out  of  the  si 
lence  of  those  undercurrents  to  let  us  know  that 
he  was  at  the  head.  When  news  arrived  on 
the  17th  that  three  tea-ships  were  on  the  way 
to  Boston,  for  a  second  time  a  town-meeting 
demanded  through  a  committee,  of  which  Sam 
uel  Adams  was  a  member,  the  resignation  of 
the  consignees.  They  evaded  the  demand ;  the 
town-meeting  voted  their  answer  not  satisfac 
tory,  and  at  once  adjourned  without  debate  or 
comment.  The  silence  was  mysterious ;  what 
was  impending  none  could  tell. 

The  consignees,  appreciating  their  danger, 
tried  to  shift  their  responsibility  upon  the  gov 
ernor  and  Council,  but  without  effect.  The 


246  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Committee  of  Correspondence  of  the  town, 
combining  with  itself  the  committees  of  Rox- 
bury,  Dorchester,  Brookline,  Cambridge,  and 
Charlestown,  and  so  forming  what  Hutchinson 
called  "a  little  senate,"  met  frequently  and 
maintained  a  general  oversight.  They  pledged 
themselves  to  resist  the  landing  and  sale  of  the 
tea,  and  sent  out  through  the  Province  a  joint 
letter,  the  composition  of  Samuel  Adams  :  — 
"  We  think,  gentlemen,"  this  document  said, 
"  that  we  are  in  duty  bound  to  use  our  most 
strenuous  endeavors  to  ward  off  the  impending 
evil,  and  we  are  sure  that  upon  a  fair  and  cool 
inquiry  into  the  nature  and  tendency  of  the 
ministerial  plan,  you  will  think  this  tea  now 
coming  to  us  more  to  be  dreaded  than  plague 
and  pestilence."  The  necessity  of  resistance 
was  strongly  declared,  and  the  advice  of  the 
committees  urgently  asked. 

The  incipient  union  is  becoming  very  plain 
at  the  time  of  the  Boston  tea-party.  In  the 
crises  of  an  earlier  date,  each  town  or  province 
had  met  the  occasion  in  a  condition  of  more  or 
less  isolation.  Now,  however,  as  never  before, 
there  appears  a  formal  bond  ;  the  newspapers 
teem  with  missives,  not  only  from  Massachu 
setts  towns,  but  from  the  colonies  in  general, 
expressing  sympathy,  fear  that  the  peril  will 
not  be  adequately  met,  encouragement  to  bold- 


THE  TEA-PARTY.  247 

ness,  praise  for  decision,  —  missives  proceeding 
from  the  regularly  organized  committees,  show 
ing  how  the  ligaments  are  knitting  that  are  to 
bind  so  great  a  body. 

On  the  28th,  the  first  of  the  tea-ships,  the 
Dartmouth,  Captain  Hall,  sailed  into  the 
harbor.  Sunday  though  it  was,  the  Committee 
of  Correspondence  met,  obtained  from  Benja 
min  Rotch,  the  Quaker  owner  of  the  Dart 
mouth,  a  promise  not  to  enter  the  vessel  until 
Tuesday,  and  made  preparations  for  a  mass- 
rheeting  at  Faneuil  Hall  for  Monday  forenoon, 
to  which  Samuel  Adams  was  authorized  to  in 
vite  the  surrounding  towns.  A  stirring  placard 
the  next  morning  brought  the  townsmen  and 
their  neighbors  to  the  place.  After  the  organi 
zation,  Samuel  Adams,  arising  among  the  thou 
sands,  moved  that :  "  As  the  town  have  deter 
mined  at  ajate^meeting  legafty-g^sembled  that 
they  will  to  the  utmost  of  their  power  prevent 
the  landing  of  the  tea7~fclie  question  be  now 
put,  —  whether  this  body  are  absolutely  deter 
mined  that  the  tea  now  arrived  in  Captain  Hall 
shall  be  returned  to  the  place  from  whence  it 
came."  There  was  not  a  dissenting  voice.  The 
meeting  had  now  become  larger  even  than  the 
famous  one  of  the  Massacre.  As  usual  they 
surged  across  King  Street  to  the  Old  South, 
once  more  under  the  eyes  of  Hutchinson,  who, 


248  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

as  at  the  time  of  the  Massacre,  who  could  look 
down  upon  them  from  the  chamber  in  the  State 
House  where  he  was  sitting  with  the  Council. 
Samuel  Adams's  motion  was  repeated,  with  the 
addition :  "  Is  it  the  firm  resolution  of  this 
body  that  the  tea  shall  not  only  be  sent  back, 
but  that  no  duty  shall  be  paid  thereon  ? " 
Again  there  was  no  dissenting  voice.  In  the 
afternoon,  the  meeting  having  resolved  that  the 
tea  should  go  back  in  the  same  ship  in  which 
it  had  come,  Rotch,  the  owner  of  the  Dart 
mouth,  protested,  but  was  sternly  forbidden,  at 
his  peril,  to  enter  the  tea.  Captain  Hall  also 
was  forbidden  to  land  any  portion  of  it.  "  Ad 
ams  was  never  in  greater  glory,"  says  Hutch- 
inson. 

The  next  morning,  November  30,  the  peo 
ple  again  assembling,  the  consignees  made  it 
known  that  it  was  out  of  their  power  to  send 
the  tea  back;  but  they  promised  that  they 
would  store  it  until  word  should  come  from 
their  "  constituents  "  as  to  its  disposal.  While 
the  meeting  deliberated,  Greenleaf,  the  sheriff 
of  Suffolk,  appeared  with  a  message  from  the 
governor.  Samuel  Adams  gave  it  as  his  judg 
ment  that  the  sheriff  might  be  heard ;  upon 
which  the  paper  was  read.  Hutchinson  blamed 
the  meeting  sharply,  and  concluded  by  "  warn 
ing,  exhorting,  and  requiring "  the  assemblage 


THE    TEA-PARTY.  249 

to  disperse,  and  to  "  surcease  all  further  unlaw 
ful  proceedings  at  their  utmost  peril."  The 
crowd  hissed  the  official  heartily,  who  at  once 
beat  a  retreat.  Copley,  the  artist,  who  has  al 
ready  appeared  in  our  story  as  painting  the 
portrait  of  the  "man  of  the  town-meeting," 
at  the  time  when  the  regiments  were  driven  to 
the  Castle,  was  much  liked  for  his  honesty  and 
good-nature.  As  the  son-in-law  of  the  con 
signee,  Richard  Clarke,  and  at  the  same  time 
popular  in  the  town,  he  was  well-fitted  to  be 
a  mediator.  He  now  asked  of  the  meeting 
whether  the  consignees  would  be  civilly  treated, 
if  they  should  appear  before  it.  Upon  assur 
ance  that  they  would  be,  he  went  at  once  to 
the  Castle,  whither  the  Clarkes  had  betaken 
themselves,  one  must  allow  with  perfect  good 
reason,  if  they  valued  their  safety.  He  could 
not  prevail  upon  them,  however,  to  face  the 
assembly,  and  not  long  after  we  find  him  on 
the  Tory  side,  until  at  length  he  leaves  Amer 
ica. 

The  Dartmouth  each  night  was  watched  by 
a  strong  guard  ;  armed  patrols,  too,  were  es 
tablished,  and  six  couriers  held  themselves 
ready,  if  there  should  be  need,  to  alarm  the 
country.  The  most  vigorous  resolutions  were 
passed,  and  a  committee  was  appointed,  with 
Samuel  Adams  at  the  head,  to  send  intelligence 


250  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

far  and  wide.  During  the  first  week  in  De 
cember  arrived  the  Eleanor  and  the  Beaver, 
also  tea-ships,  which  were  moored  near  the 
Dartmouth,  and  subjected  to  the  same  over 
sight.  The  "True  Sons  of  Liberty"  posted 
about  the  town  the  most  spirited  placards. 
From  the  sister  towns  the  post-riders  came 
spurring  in  haste  with  responses  to  the  mani 
festo  of  the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  all 
which  Samuel  Adams  took  care  to  have  at  once 
published,  with  whatever  rumors  there  might 
be  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  other  provinces  re 
specting  tea,  which,  as  all  knew,  might  be  ex 
pected  to  arrive  in  other  ports  besides  Boston. 

Hutchinson,  in  spite  of  himself,  had  become, 
one  is  forced  to  say  through  the  machinations 
of  the  Whigs,  little  more  than  a  cipher  in  his 
own  jurisdiction.  His  influence  was  for  the 
time  being  completely  broken  down,  and  though 
the  fleet  lay  in  the  harbor,  and  the  weak  regi 
ments  were  at  the  Castle,  yet  the  popular  man 
ifestation  was  so  general  and  threatening  that 
he  could  make  no  head  against  it.  It  is  absurd 
to  accuse  him  or  the  consignees  of  cowardice 
because  they  felt  they  were  in  danger  in  the 
town.  The  latter  had  good  reason  to  seek  the 
protection  of  the  Castle,  and  the  governor 
might  well  prefer  to  occupy  his  country  house. 
For  several  times  the  air  was  full  of  riot,  and 


THE   TEA-PARTY.  251 

Hutchinson  and  his  friends  had  cause  to  know 
that  a  Boston  riot  might  be  a  terrible  thing. 
The  governor  could  not  depend  upon  any  jus 
tice  of  the  peace  to  make  a  requisition  for  the 
use  of  the  military.  Whether  he  himself  had 
power  to  make  such  a  requisition  lawfully  was 
a  matter  open  to  doubt.  He  could  expect  no 
support  from  his  Council,  —  his  own  party  were 
completely  overawed.  He  showed  no  want  of 
spirit  at  this  time.  Says  Richard  Fro  thing- 
ham  :  "  His  course  does  not  show  one  sign  of 
vacillation  from  first  to  last,  but  throughout 
bears  the  marks  of  clear,  cold,  passionless  in 
flexibility."  It  is  rather  amusing  to  read  his 
summons  to  Hancock,  commander  of  the  Bos 
ton  cadets,  to  hold  his  force  in  readiness  for  the 
preservation  of  order ;  for  Hancock,  however 
he  may  have  coquetted  with  the  Tories  shortly 
before,  was  now  a  red-hot  Whig,  as  were  most 
of  the  cadets,  who  were  in  great  part  them 
selves  in  the  "  rabble."  The  governor  de 
nounced,  threatened,  pleaded,  without  yielding 
a  hair  from  his  position  that  the  authority  of 
Parliament  must  be  maintained,  although,  as 
we  know  now,  it  went  sorely  against  his  wish 
that  the  tax  on  tea  was  retained,  and  he  would 
gladly  have  had  things  as  they  were  before  the 
Stamp  Act. 

The  days  flew  by.     At  length  came  the  end 


252  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

of  the  time  of  probation.  If  the  cargo  of  the 
Dartmouth  had  not  been  "entered"  within  that 
period,  the  ship,  according  to  the  revenue  laws, 
must  be  confiscated.  Rotch,  the  Quaker  owner, 
had  signified  his  willingness  to  send  the  ship 
back  to  England  with  the  cargo  on  board,  if  he 
could  procure  a  clearance.  The  customs  offi 
cials  stood  on  technicalities  ;  under  the  circum 
stances  a  clearance  could  not  be  granted.  The 
grim  British  admiral  ordered  the  Active  and 
the  Kingfisher  from  his  fleet  to  train  their 
broadsides  on  the  channels,  and  sink  whatever 
craft  should  try  to  go  to  sea  without  the 
proper  papers.  The  governor  alone  had  power 
to  override  these  obstacles.  It  was  competent 
for  him  to  grant  a  permit  which  the  revenue 
men  and  the  admiral  must  respect.  If  he  re 
fused  to  do  this,  then  on  the  next  day  the  legal 
course  was  for  the  revenue  officers  to  seize  the 
Dartmouth  and  land  the  tea  under  the  guns  of 
the  fleet. 

It  was  the  16th  of  December.  A  crowd  of 
seven  thousand  filled  the  Old  South  and  the 
streets  adjoining.  Nothing  like  it  had  ever 
been  known.  Town -meeting  had  followed 
town-meeting  until  the  excitement  was  at  fever 
heat.  The  indefatigable  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence  had,  as  it  were,  scattered  fire  through 
out  the  whole  country.  The  people  from  deep 


THE   TEA-PARTY.  253 

in  the  interior  had  poured  over  the  "Neck"  into 
the  little  peninsula  to  see  what  was  coming ; 
the  beacons  were  ready  for  lighting,  and  every 
where  eyes  were  watching,  expecting  to  see 
them  blaze.  Poor  Quaker  Rotch,  like  his  sect 
in  general,  quite  indifferent  to  great  political 
principles  at  stake,  ready  to  submit  to  "  the 
powers  that  be,"  and  anxious  about  his  pelf, 
felt  himself,  probably,  the  most  persecuted  of 
men,  when  the  monster  meeting  forced  him  in 
the  December  weather  to  make  his  way  out  to 
Milton  Hill  to  seek  the  permit  from  Hutchin- 
son.  While  the  merchant  journeyed  thither 
and  back,  the  great  meeting  deliberated.  Even 
as  ardent  a  spirit  as  Josiah  Quincy  counseled 
moderation  ;  but  when  the  question  was  put 
whether  the  meeting  would  suffer  the  tea  to 
be  landed,  the  people  declared  against  it  unan 
imously. 

Meantime  darkness  had  fallen  upon  the 
short  winter  day.  The  crowd  still  waited  in 
the  gloom  of  the  church,  dimly  lighted  here 
and  there  by  candles.  Rotch  reappeared  just 
after  six,  and  informed  the  meeting  that  the 
governor  refused  to  grant  the  permit  until  the 
vessels  were  properly  qualified.  As  soon  as 
the  report  had  been  made,  Samuel  Adams 
arose,  for  it  was  he  who  had  been  moderator, 
and  exclaimed  :  "  This  meeting  can  do  nothing 


254  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

more  to  save  the  country.''  It  was  evidently  a 
concerted  signal,  for  instantly  the  famous  war- 
whoop  was  heard,  and  the  two  or  three  score  of 
"  Mohawks  "  rushed  by  the  doors,  and  with  the 
crowd  behind  them  hurried  in  the  brighten 
ing  moonlight  to  Griffin's  wharf,  where  lay  the 
ships.  The  tea  could  not  go  back  to  England  ; 
it  must  not  be  landed.  The  cold  waters  of  the 
harbor  were  all  that  remained  for  it.  Three 
hundred  and  forty-two  chests  were  cast  over 
board.  Nothing  else  was  harmed,  neither  per 
son  nor  property.  All  was  so  quiet  that  those 
at  a  distance  even  could  hear  in  the  calm  air 
the  ripping  open  of  the  thin  chests  as  the  tea 
was  emptied.  The  "Mohawks"  found  helpers, 
so  that  in  all  perhaps  one  hundred  and  fifty 
were  actively  concerned.  Not  far  off  in  the 
harbor  lay  the  ships  of  the  fleet,  and  the  Castle 
with  the  "  Sam  Adams  regiments."  But  no 
one  interfered.  The  work  done,  the  "  Mohawks  " 
marched  to  the  fife  and  drum  through  the 
streets,  chaffing  on  the  way  Admiral  Montague, 
who  was  lodging  in  the  town.  He  gave  a  surly 
growl  in  return,  which  tradition  has  preserved. 
"  Well,  boys,  you  've  had  a  fine  pleasant  even 
ing  for  your  Indian  caper,  have  n't  you  ?  But 
mind,  you  have  got  to  pay  the  fiddler  yet !  " 
"  Oh,  never  mind !  "  shouted  Pitts,  the  leader, 
"  never  mind,  squire  ;  just  come  out  here,  if 


THE   TEA-PARTY.  255 

you  please,  and  we  '11  settle  the  bill  in  two 
minutes."  1 

Next  morning,  while  the  good  Bohea,  soaked 
by  the  tide,  was  heaped  in  windrows  on  the 
Dorchester  shore,  the  rueful  Boston  mothers 
steeped  from  catnip  and  pennyroyal  a  cup 
which  certainly  could  not  inebriate,  and  which 
even  Sam  Adams's  robust  patriotism  could 
hardly  have  regarded  as  cheering. 

Through  this  whole  crisis  Hancock  was  in 
the  front,  like  a  brave  man,  risking  his  life  and 
his  means.  Warren,  too,  and  another  public- 
spirited  physician,  Dr.  Thomas  Young,  who  soon 
after,  by  removal  from  the  country,  brought  to 
an  end  a  career  which  had  promised  to  become 
illustrious,  were  earnestly  engaged.  To  these 
must  be  added  Josiah  Quincy,  John  Pitts,  John 
Scollay,  and  the  other  selectmen,  with  William 
Cooper,  the  intrepid  town  clerk.  But  in  the 
whole  affair  Samuel  Adams  was  more  than  ever 
the  supreme  mind.  To  his  discretion  was  left 
the  giving  of  the  signal ;  as  the  controller  of 
the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  he  was  prac 
tically  the  ruler  of  the  town  ;  his  spirit  per 
vaded  every  measure.  In  regard  to  the  whole 
secret  development,  which  can  now  never  be 
known,  it  is  probable  that  his  influence  was 
no  less  dominant  than  in  what  was  done  be 
fore  the  world. 

1  Lossing's  Field  Book,  i.  499. 


256  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

The  couriers  galloped  with  all  the  four  winds 
to  spread  the  news,  Paul  Revere  reaching 
Philadelphia  the  day  after  Christmas.  Here 
is  a  specimen  of  the  hastily  prepared  notes 
they  carried  from  the  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence.  It  is  copied  from  the  autograph  in 
Samuel  Adams's  papers,  the  £'s  for  the  most 
part  uncrossed,  and  punctuation  neglected  in 
the  breathless  haste  in  which  it  was  written. 

BOSTON,  Dec.  llth,  1773. 

GENTLEMEN,  —  We  inform  you  in  great  Haste 
that  every  chest  of  Tea  on  board  the  three  Ships  in 
this  Town  was  destroyed  the  last  evening  without  the 
least  Injury  to  the  Vessels  or  any  other  property. 
Our  Enemies  must  acknowledge  that  these  people 
have  acted  upon  pure  and  upright  Principle,  the 
people  at  the  Cape  will  we  hope  behave  with  pro 
priety  and  as  becomes  men  resolved  to  save  their 
Country. 

To  Plyrn0 

&  to  Sandwich  with  this  addition 

We  trust  you  will  afford  them 
Your  immediate  Assistance  and  Advice. 

The  reference  at  the  close  of  the  note  is  to 
still  a  fourth  tea-ship  which  had  been  cast  away 
on  the  back  of  Cape  Cod. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

HUTCHINSON   AND   THE   TOEIES. 

THE  Boston  leaders  were  now  in  great  dan 
ger  of  arrest  and  deportation  to  England  for 
trial,  the  members  of  the  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence  in  particular  being  shadowed  by  spies 
who  tried  to  obtain  all  information  that  could 
be  made  to  count  against  them.  For  mutual 
protection  fifteen  members  of  the  committee 
bound  themselves  to  support  and  vindicate  one 
another,  by  an  agreement  which  it  is  interest 
ing  to  read.  In  this  document  a  circumstance 
slight  in  itself,  but  important  as  revealing  the 
recognized  leadership  of  Samuel  Adams,  is  to 
be  noticed.  The  first  signer  is  a  worthy  citi 
zen,  Robert  Pierpont,  but  the  name  has  been 
erased,  and  that  of  Samuel  Adams  put  in  its 
place,  Pierpont  and  the  other  associates  coming 
afterward.  Plainly  the  committee  regarded  it 
as  presumptuous  that  any  name  should  be  writ 
ten  before  his.  The  energy  of  the  body  was 
untiring.  South  Carolina  was  encouraged,  and 
the  tea  received  there  was  left  to  rot  in  cellars 

17 


258  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

in  Charleston.  Philadelphia  and  New  York 
responded  with  equal  spirit.  Through  the  com 
mittees  the  thirteen  colonies  were  now  linked, 
and  the  desire  for  a  Congress  was  becoming 
general  and  imperative. 

When  the  legislature  met  in  January,  1774, 
to  which  time  it  had  been  prorogued,  Samuel 
Adams  vindicated  the  Committees  of  Corre 
spondence  and  their  activity  in  the  intervals 
between  the  sessions,  in  reply  to  a  message  of 
Hutchinson,  who  declared  the  king's  disappro 
bation  of  such  institutions.  Comparing  the 
state  papers  of  the  veteran  disputant  at  this 
time  with  those  of  ten  years  previous,  one  notes 
a  change  in  the  grounds  upon  which  he  chooses 
to  base  his  striving.  There  is  less  reference  to 
precedents  and  documentary  authorities,  and 
more  frequent  appeal  to  natural  right.  "»The 
welfare  and  safety  of  the  people,"  "  the  good 
of  the  people,"  are  phrases  which  appear 
more  often.  Whether  it  was  that  he  felt  that 
he  could  express  himself  more  freely  since 
public  sentiment  had  become  so  far  educated, 
or  whether  his  own  conceptions  ripened  and 
altered,  his  arguments  and  his  watchwords  be 
came  different.  Hutchinson  wrote  :  — 

"  The  leaders  here  seem  to  acknowledge  that  their 
cause  is  not  to  be  defended  on  constitutional  princi 
ples,  and  Adams  now  gives  out  that  there  is  no  need 


HUTCH  INS  ON  AND   THE   TORIES.  259 

of  it ;  they  are  upon  better  ground  ;  all  men  have  a 
natural  right  to  change  a  bad  constitution  for  a  better, 
whenever  they  have  it  in  their  power." l 

Elsewhere,  too,  Hutchinson  declares  to  Lord 
Dartmouth  that  a  principle  had  been  avowed 
by  the  patriots  that  "  the  public  good  was  above 
all  considerations." 

An  important  topic  during  the  present  ses 
sion  was  the  one  which  had  now  for  some  time 
been  agitated,  and  which  had  been  pointedly 
dwelt  upon  at  the  session  of  the  preceding 
summer,  whether  the  judges  of  the  Superior 
Court  should  be  suffered  to  receive  salaries 
from  the  king,  and  thus  be  made  quite  inde 
pendent  of  the  Province.  The  legislature  had 
passed  resolves  requiring  the  judges  to  de 
cline  the  royal  grant ;  and  one  of  the  five, 
Trowbridge,  whose  feeble  bodily  condition  was 
believed,  at  any  rate  by  the  Tories,  to  have 
unnerved  him,  had  obeyed.  His  associates  fol 
lowed  his  example.  "  One  of  them  assured 
me,"  says  Hutchinson,  "  that  he  was  con 
strained  to  a  compliance,  merely  because  his 
person,  his  wife  and  children,  and  his  property, 
were  at  the  mercy  of  the  populace,  from  whom 
there  was  nothing  which  he  had  not  to  fear." 
Peter  Oliver  alone,  the  chief  justice,  refused  to 
1  Copied  from  autograph  in  Mass.  Arch.  April  7,  1773. 


260  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

yield  to  the  legislative  pressure,  and  was  at 
once  taken  in  hand.  The  judges,  in  truth, 
seem  to  have  been  miserably  starved.  Even 
their  door-keeper  is  said  to  have  had  a  larger 
stipend  than  theirs.  On  circuits  they  traveled 
eleven  hundred,  sometimes  thirteen  hundred 
miles  a  year.  The  highest  grant  made  to  any 
one  of  them  was  £120  a  year,  and  it  had  been 
much  less.  The  chief  justice  received  only 
XI 50.  Small  as  the  salary  was,  the  grant  was 
sometimes  postponed.  Respected  members  of 
the  bench,  not  long  before,  had -lived  in  penury 
and  died  insolvent.  Peter  Oliver  set  forth  that 
he  had  been  a  justice  of  the  Superior  Court 
seventeen  years;  that  his  salary  had  been  in 
sufficient  for  his  support ;  that  his  estate  had 
suffered,  and  that  he  had  repeatedly  had  it  in 
mind  to  resign,  but  had  been  encouraged  to 
hope  for  something  better.  It  had  always  been 
a  hope  deferred,  and  he  announced  that  he 
proposed  now  to  accept  the  offer  of  the  king. 

When  Oliver's  purpose  became  plain,  steps 
were  promptly  taken  in  the  legislature  for  his 
impeachment.  Hereupon  sprang  up  a  new  con 
troversy  with  the  governor.  The  Assembly 
assumed  that  since  the  chief  justice  was  ap 
pointed  by  the  governor  by  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  Council,  the  governor  and 
Council  by  implication,  though  it  might  not 


HUTCHINSON  AND  THE    TORIES.  261 

be  plainly  expressed,  possessed  also  a  power 
of  removal.  Hutchinson  declared  that  the  gov 
ernor  and  Council  had  no  power  to  sit  as  a 
court  in  such  a  case ;  and  when  the  committee 
of  the  Assembly,  with  Samuel  Adams  at  its 
head,  presented  themselves  before  the  Council 
to  institute  proceedings,  the  governor  held  aloof. 
A  neat  piece  of  management  here  occurred, 
in  which  Adams  and  Bowdoin  played  into  one. 
another's  hands  as  they  had  long  been  accus 
tomed  to  do,  dexterously  circumventing  an  ob 
stacle,  and  making  a  precedent  sure  to  be 
afterwards  useful.  Poor  Hutchinson,  not  less 
shrewd  than  they,  saw  it  all,  but  he  had  be 
come  the  merest  shadow  of  power. 

"  Mr.  Adams  addressed  the  Council  in  this  form  : 
*  May  it  please  your  Excellency  and  the  honorable 
Council.'  Mr.  Bowdoin,  no  doubt  by  concert,  ob 
served  to  him  that  the  governor  was  not  in  Council. 
This  gave  opportunity  for  an  answer  :  *  The  governor 
is  "  presumed  "  to  be  present.'  This  was  certainly  a 
very  idle  presumption.  It  gave  pretense,  however, 
for  Mr.  Adams  to  report  to  the  House,  and,  being 
clerk  of  the  House,  afterwards  to  enter  upon  the 
journals,  that  the  committee  had  impeached  the  chief 
justice  before  the  governor  and  Council,  and  prayed 
that  they  would  assign  a  time  for  hearing  and  deter 
mining  thereon." 

The  cunning  coryphoai  of  the  two  houses  in 


262  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

this  way  were  preparing  to  dispense  with  the 
governor  entirely.  He  prorogued  the  Court 
before  proceedings  could  go  further,  sending 
his  secretary  for  that  purpose.  The  Council 
received  the  message,  but  the  House  barred  its 
door  against  him  until  they  had  completed  cer 
tain  important  measures.  The  last  act  of  the 
session,  while  the  door  was  still  kept  fast,  was 
to  direct  the  Committee  of  Correspondence  to 
write  to  Franklin  with  respect  to  the  public 
grievances,  —  the  final  appeal,  direct  or  indi 
rect,  which  Massachusetts  made  for  redress. 

Hutchinson,  broken  in  health  by  the  treat 
ment  he  had  received  from  a  people  whom  he 
sincerely  loved  and  honestly  desired  to  serve, 
begged  the  king  for  leave  of  absence.  It  was 
promptly  granted,  and  the  governor  would  have 
early  availed  himself  of  it,  but  for  the  death  of 
Andrew  *  Oliver,  the  lieutenant-governor.  If 
Hutchinson  should  now  absent  himself,  author 
ity  must  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Council, 
which  would  be  a  complete  surrender  to  the 
Whigs.  He  therefore  postponed  his  departure 
until  a  new  appointment  could  be  made. 

On  the  5th  of  March  the  oration  in  com 
memoration  of  the  Massacre  was  given  by  John 
Hancock.  He  is  described  as  making  a  fine  ap 
pearance,  and  produced  upon  the  vast  assembly 
a  great  impression.  Wells,  whose  admiration 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE    TORIES.  263 

foi"  his  great-grandfather  is  perfectly  unquali 
fied,  insists,  with  rather  naive  unconsciousness 
that  there  can  be  anything  crooked  in  such  a 
proceeding,  that  Samuel  Adams  wrote  the  ora 
tion  for  Hancock,  and  then  sat  blandly  by  as 
moderator  while  the  people  were  deceived  into 
the  belief  that  the  man  who  surpassed  all  in 
social  graces  and  length  of  purse  could  thun 
der  also  from  the  rostrum  with  the  best.  At 
the  end,  moreover,  the  moderator,  at  the  head 
of  the  committee  appointed  by  the  meeting, 
thanked  the  orator  in  the  name  of  the  town  for 
his  "  elegant  and  spirited  oration."  Really 
there  is  nothing  in  the  character  of  either  man, 
it  must  be  admitted  with  some  sadness,  to 
make  the  assertion  seem  unreasonable.  Han 
cock  was  quite  capable,  as  in  his  love  for  pop 
ularity  he  wooed  the  turbulent  crowd,  of  appro 
priating  without  acknowledgment  the  strength 
of  some  convenient  Siegfried,  standing  invisible 
at  his  side.  As  to  Adams,  since  we  have  been 
forced  to  believe  that  he  had  a  principal  hand 
in  the  manoeuvring  as  regards  Hutchinson's 
letters,  it  will  require  no  strain  to  believe  him 
capable  of  a  peccadillo,  so  trifling  in  compar 
ison,  as  lending  Hancock  a  little  brains,  that  he 
might  gain  a  credit  he  did  not  deserve.  The 
transaction  has  unquestionably  a  good  side. 
The  cause  would  be  helped  by  a  spirited,  patri- 


264  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

otic  speech  from  the  handsome,  well-born  man 
whose  wealth  and  prodigality  gave  him  pres 
tige.  Hancock,  too,  would  be  pleased,  and  so 
more  firmly  bound.  No  American  public  man 
ever  postponed  more  utterly  the  thought  of 
self  than  Samuel  Adams.  Only  let  the  cause 
be  helped  !  No  man's  end  was  ever  better,  but 
now  and  then  in  the  means  there  was  a  touch 
of  trickery. 

When  the  news  of  the  Boston  tea-party 
reached  England,  Parliament,  naturally  much 
incensed,  prepared  promptly  to  retaliate.  Says 
the  authority  from  whom  so  much  has  been 
taken,  whose  help,  however,  we  are  about  to 
lose  :  — 

"  This  was  the  boldest  stroke  which  had  yet  been 
struck  in  America.  .  .  .  The  leaders  feared  no  con 
sequences.  And  it  is  certain  that  ever  after  this  time 
an  opinion  was  easily  instilled  and  was  constantly  in 
creasing,  that  the  body  of  the  people  had  also  gone 
too  far  to  recede,  and  that  an  open  and  general  revolt 
must  be  the  consequence  ;  and  it  was  not  long  before 
actual  preparations  were  visibly  making  for  it  in 
most  parts  of  the  Province." 

While  one  party  thus  girded  itself  for  a  war 
that  was  no  longer  to  consist  in  words,  the 
other  party  pressed  on  with  equal  spirit.  The 
first  retaliatory  measure  was  the  Boston  Port 
Bill,  which  passed  about  the  end  of  March  in 


spite  of  the  strenuous  opposition  of  the 
of  America,  and  against  the  best  judgment  also 
of  Hutchinson  and  some  of  the  wiser  Tories. 
The  faithful  Colonel  Barre  showed  at  this  time 
a  curious  inconsistency  and  confusion  of  ideas. 
In  a  speech  which  causes  one  almost  to  believe 
that  the  good  veteran  at  the  time  had  fortified 
himself  for  his  forensic  bout  with  a  nip  of 
Dutch  courage,  he  declared  "  that  he  liked  the 
measure,  harsh  as  it  was  ;  he  liked  it  for  its 
moderation.  .  .  .  He  said,  I  think  Boston  ought 
to  be  punished.  She  is  your  oldest  son.  (Here 
the  House  laughed)."  1  A  fortnight  later,  how 
ever,  he  stood  sturdily  with  Burke  and  Pownall 
in  strong  opposition.  By  the  Port  Bill  all  ships 
were  forbidden  to  enter  or  depart  from  the  port 
of  Boston,  until  the  contumacious  town  should 
agree  to  pay  for  the  destroyed  tea,  and  in  other 
respects  make  the  king  sure  of  its  willingness 
to  submit.  Many  who  had  hitherto  been  brave 
showed  now  a  disposition  to  quail.  Franklin 
wrote  from  England  to  the  four  Boston  repre 
sentatives,  advising  that  compensation  for  the 
destroyed  tea  should  be  made  to  the  East  India 
Company,  as  a  conciliatory  step.  Samuel  Ad 
ams  dismissed  the  advice  with  the  contemp 
tuous  remark  that  "  Franklin  might  be  a  great 
philosopher,  but  that  he  was  a  bungling  politi 
cian." 

1  Tudor's  Otis,  p.  438. 


266  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

A  second  act  was  also  passed  by  Parliament 
to  change  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts, 
according  to  which  act  the  Council  was  to  be 
appointed  by  the  crown,  the  judges  were  to  be 
appointed  and  removed  by  the  governor,  the 
juries  were  to  be  nominated  and  summoned  by 
the  sheriffs,  instead  of  chosen  among  the  peo 
ple,  and,  most  serious  of  all,  an  end  was  to  be 
put  to  the  free  town-meetings,  which  henceforth 
were  to  assemble  only  as  convened  by  the  gov 
ernor,  and  to  discuss  only  such  topics  as  he  pre 
scribed. 

A  third  act  was  designed  to  protect  soldiers 
who  might  use  violence  in  opposing  popular 
disturbances.  Such  trials  as  those  of  Captain 
Preston  and  the  men  who  fired  at  the  Massacre 
were  not  to  be  repeated,  but  any  persons  sim 
ilarly  accused  were  to  be  sent  to  Great  Britain, 
or  to  some  other  colony,  to  be  judged. 

A  fourth  act,  affecting  Massachusetts  less 
directly  than  the  three  which  have  been  de 
scribed,  was,  however,  scarcely  less  exasperat 
ing.  It  was  known  as  the  Quebec  Act,  and 
had  as  its  ostensible  object  the  settling  of  the 
constitution  of  Canada.  But  the  measure  did 
far  more  than  this.  In  disregard  of  the  charters 
and  rights  of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  New 
York,  and  Virginia,  the  boundaries  of  "  Que 
bec  "  were  extended  to  the  region  now  occupied 


HUTCH  IN  SON  AND  THE   TORIES.  267 

by  Ohio,  Michigan,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Wis 
consin,  —  the  whole  Northwest ;  for  all  this  vast 
territory  an  arbitrary  rule  was  decreed.  There 
was  to  be  no  habeas  corpus  ;  the  people  were 
to  have  no  power;  the  religion  of  the  pope  was 
not  only  tolerated,  but  favored.  Said  Thurlow, 
in  the  House  of  Commons :  "  It  is  the  only 
proper  constitution  for  the  colonies ;  it  ought 
to  have  been  given  to  them  all  when  first 
planted ;  and  it  is  what  all  now  ought  to  be  re 
duced  to."  Measures  were  also  taken  to  meet 
the  case  of  riots,  and  special  instructions  were 
sent  for  the  arrest,  at  a  proper  and  convenient 
time,  of  Samuel  Adams,  as  the  "  chief  of  the 
revolution  "  above  all  others.  General  Gage, 
commander-in-chief  in  America,  was  appointed 
to  supersede  Hutchinson  temporarily,  the  quar 
tering  of  soldiers  upon  the  people  was  made 
legal,  and  arrangements  were  entered  upon  for 
increasing  the  military  force. 

Meantime   in  the   Province,  the   legislature 
being  prorogued,  and  Hutchinson 's  power  prac 
tically  at  an  end,  authority  lay  in  the  hands  ofv 
the  Committee  of  Correspondence. 

"  The  governor,"  says  Hutchinson,  "  retained  the 
title  of  captain-general,  but  he  had  the  title  only. 
The  inhabitants  in  many  parts  of  the  Province  were 
learning  the  use  of  fire-arms,  but  not  under  the  offi 
cers  of  the  regiments  to  which  they  belonged.  They 


268  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

were  forming  themselves  into  companies  for  military 
exercise  under  officers  of  their  own  choosing,  hinting 
the  occasion  there  might  soon  be  for  employing  their 
arms  in  defense  of  their  liberties." 

Letters  were  addressed  to  the  sister  colonies, 
deploring  their  silence  as  to  the  question  of 
parliamentary  authority.  Adams,  writing  to 
Franklin  for  the  Committee,  recapitulates  the 
old  positions  :  — 

"  It  will  be  vain  for  any  to  expect  that  the  people 
of  this  country  will  now  be  contented  with  a  partial 
and  temporary  relief,  or  that  they  will  be  amused  by 
court  promises,  while  they  see  not  the  least  relaxa 
tion  of  grievances.  By  the  vigilance  and  activity  of 
Committees  of  Correspondence  among  the  several 
towns  in  this  Province,  they  have  been  wonderfully 
enlightened  and  animated.  They  are  united  in  senti 
ment,  and  their  opposition  to  unconstitutional  meas 
ures  of  government  is  become  systematical.  Colony 
communicates  freely  with  colony.  There  is  a  com 
mon  affection  among  them,  —  the  communis  sensus  ; 
and  the  whole  continent  is  now  become  united  in  sen 
timent  and  in  opposition  to  tyranny.  Their  old  good 
will  and  affection  for  the  parent  country  is  not,  how 
ever,  lost.  If  she  returns  to  her  former  moderation 
and  good  humor,  their  affection  will  revive.  They 
wish  for  nothing  more  than  permanent  union  with 
her,  upon  the  condition  of  equal  liberty.  This  is  all 
they  have  been  contending  for,  and  nothing  short  of 
this  will,  or  ought  to,  satisfy  them.  When  formerly 


HUTCHINSON  AND  THE  TORIES.  269 

the  kings  of  England  have  encroached  upon  the  liber 
ties  of  their  subjects,  the  subjects  have  thought  it 
their  duty  to  themselves  and  their  posterity  to  con 
tend  with  them  till  they  were  restored  to  the  footing 
of  the  Constitution.  The  events  of  such  struggles 
have  sometimes  proved  fatal  to  crowned  heads, — 
perhaps  they  have  never  issued  but  in  establishments 
of  the  people's  liberties." 

Already  Hutchinson  had  written  to  Dart 
mouth  :  "  There  are  some  who  are  ready  to  go 
all  the  lengths  of  the  chief  incendiary,  who  is 
determined,  he  says,  to  get  rid  of  every  gov 
ernor  who  obstructs  them  in  their  course  to  in 
dependency."  l  Samuel  Adams  himself  now 
wrote  to  Arthur  Lee :  — 

"  The  body  of  the  people  are  now  in  council. 
Their  opposition  grows  into  a  system.  They  are 
united  and  resolute.  And  if  the  British  administra 
tion  and  government  do  not  return  to  the  principles 
of  moderation  and  equity,  the  evil,  which  they  profess 
to  aim  at  preventing  by  their  rigorous  measures,  will 
the  sooner  be  brought  to  pass,  viz.,  the  entire  separa 
tion  and  independence  of  the  colonies." 

News  of  the  Port  Bill  and  of  the  removal  of 
the  seat  of  government  to  Salem  were  received 
in  Boston  on  the  10th  of  May,  which  was  at 
the  same  time  election  day.  The  spirit  of  the 
town  may  be  inferred  from  the  voting.  Of  the 
1From  letter-book  in  Mass.  Archiv.  July  10,  1773. 


270  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

five  hundred  and  thirty-six  votes  cast,  Hancock 
received  all,  Samuel  Adams  all  bat  one,  and 
Gushing  and  Phillips  were  returned  with  nearly 
the  same  emphasis.  The  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence  on  the  same  day  issued  an  invita 
tion  to  the  Committees  of  the  eight  neighboring 
towns  to  meet  them  in  convention  on  the  12th. 
The  towns,  Charlestown,  Cambridge,  Newton, 
Brookline,  Roxbury,  Dorchester,  Lynn,  and 
Lexington,  were  promptly  on  hand  by  their 
Committees.  The  proceedings  were  open  to 
the  public.  Samuel  Adams  was  moderator, 
while  Joseph  Warren,  who  every  day  now  be 
comes  more  conspicuous,  managed  proceedings 
on  the  floor.  The  injustice  and  cruelty  of  the 
act  closing  the  port  were  denounced,  and  the 
idea  indignantly  spurned  of  purchasing  exemp 
tion  from  the  penalty  by  paying  for  the  tea. 
A  circular  letter  prepared  by  Samuel  Adams 
was  sent  from  the  convention  to  New  England 
and  the  middle  colonies.  The  paper,  having 
pointed  out  the  injustice  and  cruelty  of  the  act 
by  which  the  inhabitants  had  been  condemned 
unheard,  proceeds :  — 

"  This  attack,  though  made  immediately  upon  us, 
is  doubtless  designed  for  every  other  colony  who 
shall  not  surrender  their  sacred  rights  and  liberties 
into  the  hands  of  an  infamous  ministry.  Now,  there 
fore,  is  the  time  when  all  should  be  united  in  opposi 
tion  to  this  violation  of  the  liberties  of  all.  . 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE   TORIES.  271 

"  The  single  question  then  is,  whether  you  con 
sider  Boston  as  now  suffering  in  the  common  cause, 
and  sensibly  feel  and  resent  the  injury  and  affront  of 
fered  to  her.  If  you  do,  and  we  cannot  believe 
otherwise,  may  we  not,  from  your  approbation  of 
our  former  conduct  in  defense  of  American  liberty, 
rely  on  your  suspending  your  trade  with  Great  Brit 
ain  at  least,  which  it  is  acknowledged  will  be  a  great 
but  necessary  sacrifice  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  and 
will  effectually  defeat  the  design  of  this  act  of  re 
venge.  If  this  should  be  done,  you  will  please  con 
sider  it  will  be  through  a  voluntary  suffering,  greatly 
short  of  what  we  are  called  to  endure  from  the  im 
mediate  hand  of  tyranny." 

The  town,  too,  took  action  in  the  matter. 
May  13  a  town-meeting  was  held,  at  which, 
after  prayer  by  Dr.  Samuel  Cooper,  William 
Cooper  read  the  text  of  the  Port  Bill,  which 
the  meeting  straightway  pronounced  repugnant 
to  law,  religion,  and  common  sense.  Samuel 
Adams  was  moderator.  The  Tories  were  out 
in  force  and  strove  hard  to  bring  the  meeting 
to  an  agreement  to  pay  for  the  tea,  which  course 
would  buy  off  the  ministry  from  the  enforce 
ment  of  the  act.  As  has  been  mentioned,  even 
Franklin  counseled  this;  but  a  truer  instinct 
caused  the  Boston  Whigs  to  regard  such  a 
course  as  a  virtual  admission  that  in  destroying 
the  tea  they  had  done  wrong,  and  a  concession 


272  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

therefore  of  the  principle  for  which  they  had 
been  contending.  They  carried  the  day.  Sam 
uel  Adams,  as  moderator,  transmitted  the  action 
of  Boston  to  all  the  colonies,  accompanying  his 
report  with  these  words  :  — 

"  The  people  receive  the  edict  with  indignation. 
It  is  expected  by  their  enemies,  and  feared  by  some 
of  their  friends,  that  this  town  singly  will  not  be  able 
to  support  the  cause  under  so  severe  a  trial.  As  the 
very  being  of  every  colony,  considered  as  a  free  peo 
ple,  depends  upon  the  event,  a  thought  so  dishonor 
able  to  our  brethren  cannot  be  entertained  as  that 
this  town  will  be  left  to  struggle  alone." 

Paul  Revere,  the  patriot  Mercury,  carried 
the  document  and  also  the  manifesto  of  the 
convention  of  Committees  of  Correspondence 
to  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  consuming  in 
his  ride  to  the  latter  town  six  days.  The  effect 
of  the  papers  was  marvelous.  Philadelphia 
recommended  a  Congress,  and  from  every  quar 
ter  came  expressions  of  sympathy  and  promises 
of  help.  During  the  summer  the  people  in  all 
the  New  England  and  middle  colonies  came 
together,  and  for  the  most  part  adopted  the 
phrase  that  "  Boston  must  be  regarded  as  suf 
fering  in  the  common  cause."  Everywhere 
there  was  manful  resolution  that  Boston  must 
be  sustained. 

Thomas  Gage,  the  new  military  governor,  on 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE  TORIES.  273 

the  13th  of  May,  while  the  town-meeting  just 
described  was  in  session,  sailed  up  the  harbor 
in  the  frigate  Lively,  the  cannon  of  which, 
a  year  later,  were  to  open  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill.  Landing  first  at  the  Castle,  he  entered 
the  town  on  the  17th  with  great  circumstance. 
Crowds  filled  the  streets,  and  outwardly  all  was 
decorous  and  respectful.  Hancock,  at  the  head 
of  the  cadets,  received  him  at  the  wharf ;  there 
were  proper  ceremonies  in  the  council  chamber, 
and  a  great  banquet  at  Faneuil  Hall,  where 
many  loyal  toasts  were  drunk.  The  day  was 
raw  and  rainy,  and  the  public  temper,  in  spite 
of  the  outward  show,  no  better.  The  instruc 
tions  of  Gage  were  to  proceed  promptly  against 
the  ringleaders,  who,  as  Dartmouth  wrote,  were 
regarded  as  having  sufficiently  compromised 
themselves  by  the  tea-party  to  receive  the 
heaviest  punishment.  Gage,  however,  was  re 
luctant  to  act,  through  a  well-grounded  pru 
dence.  Though  his  force  was  increased  to  four 
regiments,  no  leader  could  be  arrested  without 
certainty  of  a  popular  uprising  not  to  be  lightly 
encountered. 

We  have  now  to  bid  farewell  to  a  figure  who 
has  for  more  than  ten  years  been  scarcely  less 
conspicuous  in  these  pages  than  Samuel  Adams 
himself.  So  far  as  the  unfortunate  Thomas 

18 


274  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Hutchinson  is  concerned,  the  battle  is  over.  As 
lie  disappears  from  the  scene,  the  reader  will 
not  feel  that  it  is  an  undue  use  of  time  if  a 
page  or  two  is  devoted  to  a  final  consideration 
of  him  and  the  class  he  represented. 

History,  at  this  late  date,  can  certainly  afford 
a  compassionate  word  for  the  Tories,  who,  be 
sides  having  been  forced  to  atone  in  life  for  the 
mistake  of  taking  the  wrong  side  by  undergo 
ing  exile  and  confiscation,  have  received  while 
in  their  graves  little  but  detestation.  At  the 
evacuation  of  Boston,  says  Mr.  Sabine  in  the 
44  American  Loyalists,"  eleven  hundred  loyal 
ists  retired  to  Nova  Scotia  with  the  army  of 
Gage,  of  whom  one  hundred  and  two  were  men 
in  official  station,  eighteen  were  clergymen,  two 
hundred  and  thirteen  were  merchants  and  tra 
ders  of  Boston,  three  hundred  and  eighty-two 
were  farmers  and  mechanics,  in  great  part  from 
the  country.  The  mere  mention  of  calling  and 
station  in  the  case  of  the  forlorn,  expatriated 
company  conveys  a  suggestion  of  respectability. 
There  were,  in  fact,  no  better  men  or  women  in 
Massachusetts,  as  regards  intelligence,  substan 
tial  good  purpose,  and  piety.  They  had  made 
the  one  great  mistake  of  conceding  a  supremacy 
over  themselves  to  distant  arbitrary  masters, 
which  a  population  nurtured  under  the  influ 
ence  of  the  revived  folk-mote  ought  by  no 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE   TORIES.  275 

means  to  have  made ;  but  with  this  exception, 
the  exiles  were  not  at  all  inferior  in  worth  of 
every  kind  to  those  who  drove  them  forth.  The 
Tories  were  generally  people  of  substance,  their 
stake  in  the  country  was  greater  even  than  that 
of  their  opponents,  their  patriotism,  no  doubt, 
was  to  the  full  as  fervent.  There  is  much  that 
is  melancholy,  of  which  the  world  knows  but 
little,  connected  with  their  expulsion  from  the 
land  they  sincerely  loved.  The  estates  of  the 
Tories  were  among  the  fairest ;  their  stately 
mansions  stood  on  the  sightliest  hill  -  brows ; 
the  richest  and  best  tilled  meadows  were  their 
farms  ;  the  long  avenue,  the  broad  lawn,  the 
trim  hedge  about  the  garden,  servants,  plate, 
pictures,  —  the  varied  circumstance,  external 
and  internal,  of  dignified  and  generous  house 
keeping, —  for  the  most  part,  these  things  were 
at  the  homes  of  Tories.  They  loved  beauty, 
dignity,  and  refinement.  It  seemed  to  belong 
to  such  forms  of  life  to  be  generously  loyal  to 
king  and  Parliament,  without  questioning  too 
narrowly  as  to  rights  and  taxes.  The  rude 
contacts  of  the  town-meeting  were  full  of  things 
to  offend  the  taste  of  a  gentleman.  The  crown 
officials  were  courteous,  well-born,  congenial, 
having  behind  them  the  far  away  nobles  and 
the  sovereign,  who  rose  in  the  imagination, 
unknown  and  at  a  distance  as  they  were,  sur- 


276  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

rounded  by  a  brilliant  glamour.  Was  there 
not  a  certain  meanness  in  haggling  as  to  the 
tax  which  these  polite  placemen  and  their  su 
periors  might  choose  to  exact,  or  inquiring 
narrowly  as  to  their  credentials  when  they 
chose  to  exercise  authority  ?  The  graceful,  the 
chivalrous,  the  poetic,  the  spirits  over  whom 
these  feelings  had  power,  were  sure  to  be  To 
ries.  Democracy  was  something  rough  and 
coarse ;  independence,  —  what  was  it  but  a  sev 
ering  of  those  connections  of  which  a  colonist 
ought  to  be  proudest !  It  was  an  easy  thing  to 
be  led  into  taking  sides  against  notions  like 
these.  Hence,  when  the  country  rose,  many  a 
high-bred,  honorable  gentleman  turned  the  key 
in  his  door,  drove  down  his  line  of  trees  with 
his  refined  dame  and  carefully  guarded  children 
at  his  side,  turned  his  back  on  his  handsome 
estate,  and  put  himself  under  the  shelter  of  the 
proud  banner  of  St.  George.  It  was  a  mere 
temporary  refuge,  he  thought,  and  as  he  pro 
nounced  upon  "  Sam  Adams  "  and  the  rabble  a 
gentlemanly  execration,  he  promised  himself 
a  speedy  return,  when  discipline  and  loyalty 
should  have  put  down  the  ship-yard  men  and 
the  misled  rustics. 

But  the  return  was  never  to  be.  The  day 
went  against  them  ;  they  crowded  into  ships 
with  the  gates  of  their  country  barred  forever 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE  TORIES.  277 

behind  them.  They  found  themselves  penni 
less  upon  shores  often  bleak  and  barren,  always 
showing  scant  hospitality  to  outcasts  who  came 
empty-handed,  and  there  they  were  forced  to 
begin  life  anew.  Having  chosen  their  side, 
their  lot  was  inevitable.  Nor  are  the  victors  to 
be  harshly  judged.  There  was  no  unnecessary 
cruelty  shown  to  the  loyalists.  The  land  they 
had  left  belonged  to  the  new  order  of  things, 
and,  good  men  and  women  though  they  were, 
there  was  nothing  for  them,  and  justly  so,  but 
to  bear  their  expatriation  and  poverty  with 
such  fortitude  as  they  could  find.  Gray, 
Clarke,  Erving,  and  Faneuil,  —  Roy  all  and 
Vassall,  Fayerweather  and  Leonard  and  Sewall 
—  families  of  honorable  note,  bound  in  with  all 
that  was  best  in  the  life  of  the  Province,  — 
who  now  can  think  of  their  destiny  unpitying? 
Let  us  glance  at  the  stories  of  two  or  three 
whose  names  have  become  familiar  to  the  reader 
in  these  pages. 

Andrew  Oliver,  the  lieutenant  -  governor, 
thought  Parliament  ought  to  be  supreme. 
With  perfect  honesty  he  upheld  his  view,  be 
lieving  not  only  that  it  was  England's  right, 
but  that  in  this  sovereignty  lay  his  country's 
only  chance  for  peace  and  order.  The  old  Tory 
atoned  heavily  for  his  mistake  in  life  and  even 
in  death.  It  broke  his  heart  when  his  pri- 


278  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

vate  letters,  sent  by  Franklin,  were  used  to 
rouse  against  him  the  people's  ill-will.  In  the 
streets  he  was  exposed  to  execration.  At  his 
funeral  the  Assembly,  taking  umbrage  because 
precedence  was  given  to  the  officers  of  the  army 
and  navy,  withdrew,  insisting  even  in  presence 
of  the  corpse  upon  an  unseemly  punctilio. 
When  the  body  was  lowered  into  the  grave  the 
people  cheered,  and  Peter  Oliver,  the  chief  jus 
tice,  was  prevented  by  fear  for  his  life  from  do 
ing  a  brother's  office  at  the  burial. 

Stout  Timothy  Ruggles  was  the  son  of  the 
minister  of  Rochester.  He  was  six  feet  six 
inches  tall,  and  as  stalwart  in  spirit  as  in  frame. 
He  became  a  soldier,  and  as  the  French  wars 
proceeded  was  greatly  distinguished  for  his  ad 
dress  and  audacity.  At  the  battle  of  Lake 
George  he  was  second  in  command,  having 
charge  especially  of  the  New  England  marks 
men,  whose  sharp  fire  it  was  that  caused  the 
defeat  of  the  Baron  Dieskau.  As  a  lawyer,  af 
ter  his  return  from  his  campaigns,  his  reputa 
tion  equaled  that  which  he  had  gained  in  the 
field.  His  bold,  incisive  character,  and  a  caus 
tic  wit  which  he  possessed,  caused  men  to  give 
way  before  him.  John  Adams,  in  1759,  men 
tions  Ruggles  first  and  most  prominently  in 
making  a  comparison  of  the  leading  lawyers  of 
the  Province,  and  tells  us  in  what  his  "grand- 


HUT  CHIN  SON  AND   THE  TORIES.  279 

eur "  consisted.  Ruggles  then  lived  in  Sand 
wich,  but  removing  soon  after  to  Hardwick  in 
Worcester  County,  he  laid  out  for  himself  a 
noble  domain,  greatly  benefiting  the  agriculture 
of  the  neighborhood  by  the  introduction  of  im 
proved  methods,  by  choice  stock  and  an  appli 
cation  of  energy  and  intelligence  in  general. 
In  public  and  professional  life  he  was  a  rival  of 
the  Otises,  father  and  son.  He  was  at  one  time 
speaker  of  the  Assembly.  He  was  president  of 
the  Stamp  Act  congress  in  New  York,  where 
his  opposition  to  the  patriot  positions  caused 
him  to  be  censured.  As  the  conflict  between 
crown  and  Assembly  proceeded,  he  was  one 
of  Samuel  Adams's  most  dreaded  opponents. 
Through  force  of  character  he  did  much  to 
infuse  a  loyalist  tone  into  the  western  part  of 
the  Province,  which  might  have  been  fatal  to 
the  Whigs,  had  there  not  been  on  the  spot  a 
man  of  Hawley's  strength  to  counteract  it.  In 
the  Assembly  he  was  Hutchinson's  main  re 
liance,  able  to  accomplish  little  on  account  of 
the  overwhelming  Whig  majority,  but  always 
consistently  working  for  the  ideas  in  which  he 
believed.  When  war  became  certain,  "  Brig 
adier  "  Ruggles  was  counted  as  the  best  of  the 
veterans  who  still  survived  from  the  struggles 
with  the  French  ;  he  was  much  more  distin 
guished  than  Washington.  On  the  day  of  the 


280  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

battle  of  Lexington  he  organized  a  force  of 
loyalists,  two  hundred  strong.  Later  he  was 
in  arms  on  Long  Island.  But  fortune  no  more 
favored  him.  As  an  exile  in  Nova  Scotia  he 
fared  as  best  he  could,  dying  at  last  in  1798,  a 
man  without  a  country. 

But  of  all  the  Americans  who  took  the  loyal 
side  at  the  Revolution,  Thomas  Hutchinson  is 
the  most  distinguished  figure.  His  early  career 
has  been  already  sketched.  His  work  as  a 
financier  had  been  particularly  important,  his 
ability  in  this  direction  being  conceded  by  his 
enemies.  John  Adams  wrote  in  1809  :  — 

"  If  I  was  the  witch  of  Endor,  I  would  wake  the 
ghost  of  Hutchinson  and  give  him  absolute  power 
over  the  currency  of  the  United  States  and  every 
part  of  it,  provided  always  that  he  should  meddle 
with  nothing  but  the  currency.  As  little  as  I  revere 
his  memory,  I  will  acknowledge  that  he  understood 
the  subject  of  coin  and  commerce  better  than  any 
man  I  ever  knew  in  this  country." 

Judging  him  at  this  distance  of  time,  it  can 
be  plainly  seen  that  Hutchinson  was  a  good 
and  able  man  in  many  other  directions  than  as 
a  financier.  His  one  mistake,  in  fact,  for  which 
he  was  made  to  atone  so  bitterly  in  life  and 
death,  was  disloyalty  to  the  folk-mote,  that 
sovereign  People  so  long  discrowned,  which  on 
the  soil  of  New  England  resumed  its  rights, 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE   TORIES.  281 

and  fought  its  hot  battle  with  the  usurper, 
Prerogative.  He  should  have  chosen  his  master 
better ;  he  ought  to  have  known  how  to  choose 
better,  sprung  as  he  was  from  the  best  New 
England  strain,  and  nurtured  from  his  cradle 
in  the  atmosphere  of  freedom.  But  his  choice 
was  honest,  and  no  one,  who  examines  the  evi 
dence,  can  say  that  in  his  losing  cause  he  did 
not  fight  his  guns  like  a  man,  —  a  sleepless, 
able  captain  who  went  down  at  last  with  his 
ship.  He  hoped,  no  doubt,  for  advancement  for 
himself  and  his  sons,  stood  in  some  undue  awe, 
natural  enough  in  a  colonist,  before  the  king 
and  English  nobles,  and  came  to  feel  a  personal 
hatred  for  the  men  who  opposed  him,  so  that  he 
could  no  more  do  them  justice  than  they  could 
do  it  to  him.  It  has  been  charged  that,  for 
the  sake  of  winning  favor  with  the  people,  he 
wrote  letters  of  a  character  likely  to  give  them 
pleasure,  which  he  exhibited  in  public  as  let 
ters  which  he  intended  to  send  to  persons  in 
power  ;  that,  however,  they  were  never  sent ; 
that  the  impression  on  the  minds  of  the  peo 
ple  having  been  produced,  the  letters  were 
destroyed.  The  charge  has  been  confidently 
made  and  may  have  some  grounds.  Certainly 
the  trick  is  discreditable;  but  it  is  as  incon 
sistent  with  his  general  character  as  were  the 
occasional  shortcomings  of  Samuel  Adams  with 


282  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

his.  We  may  admit  the  faults  of  Hutchinson, 
that  he  was  sometimes  subservient,  that  he 
sometimes  bore  malice,  sometimes,  probably, 
for  a  moment  under  temptation  stooped  to  du 
plicity.  Nevertheless,  the  obloquy  of  which  he 
has  been  the  victim  is  for  the  most  part  quite 
undeserved,  and  any  lover  of  fair  play  will  feel 
that  it  ought  to  be  refuted.  He  held,  to  be  sure, 
many  offices ;  it  is  rather  the  case,  however,  that 
they  were  thrust  upon  him  than  that  he  sought 
them  ;  they  were  miserably  paid,  excepting  the 
governorship  to  which  he  attained  only  at  a  late 
period;  they  were  positions  of  burden  rather 
than  honor  ;  his  administration  of  his  trusts  in 
every  point,  excepting  as  he  favored  parliamen 
tary  supremacy,  was  wise  and  faithful,  accord 
ing  to  the  testimony  of  all.  He  has  been  called 
covetous ;  rather  he  sacrificed  his  means  for 
what  he  thought  the  public  good,  and  when,  as 
the  cause  of  the  king  went  down,  his  beautiful 
home  and  fine  fortune  underwent  confiscation, 
he  speaks  of  the  loss  in  his  diary  and  private 
letters  with  the  dignified  equanimity  of  a  high- 
minded  philosopher. 

Pleasant  traditions  of  the  last  royal  gov 
ernor  yet  linger  about  Milton  Hill,  the  spot 
which  he  loved  above  all  others.  Old  people 
are  still  there  who  have  heard  from  their  grand 
parents  the  story  of  Hutchinson 's  leave-taking, 


EUTCHINSON  AND   THE   TORIES.  283 

on  the  June  day  when  at  length  the  soldiers  had 
come  with  Gage,  and  he  was  about  setting  out 
for  England  to  give  the  king  the  account  of  his 
stewardship.  As  he  stepped  forth  from  his 
door  the  beautiful  prospect  was  before  him,  the 
Neponset  winding  through  the  meadows  wav 
ing  for  the  scythe,  the  villages  on  the  higher 
ground,  the  broad  blue  harbor,  unfolded  from 
the  wharves  to  the  Outer  Light,  with  the  ships 
on  its  breast,  and  the  flag  above  the  Castle. 
He  looked  up,  no  doubt,  into  the  branches  of 
the  thrifty  buttonwoods  he  had  planted,  with  a 
good-by  glance,  then  turned  his  back  upon  it 
all,  with  no  thought  that  it  was  for  the  last 
time.  He  went  down  the  road  on  foot,  affably 
greeting  his  neighbors,  Whig  and  Tory,  for  the 
genial  magnate  was  on  the  best  terms  with  all. 
At  the  foot  of  the  hill,  his  coach,  which  the  next 
year  was  taken  to  Cambridge  and  appropriated 
to  the  use  of  Washington,  received  him  and 
carried  him  to  Dorchester  Neck,  whence  in  his 
barge  he  proceeded  to  the  man-of-war  Minerva, 
and  so  passed  away  forever. 

All  that  he  possessed  was  confiscated,  even 
the  dust  of  his  forefathers,  and  those  still 
nearer ;  and  here  may  be  mentioned  a  circum 
stance  in  which  the  grotesque  and  the  melan 
choly  are  strangely  commingled.  In  his  tomb 
on  Copp's  Hill  lay  his  father  and  grandfather, 


284  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

and  also  his  wife,  whose  memory  he  tenderly 
cherished.  He  wrote  from  England  a  moving 
letter  to  his  son,  asking  that  the  coffin  might  be 
removed  to  Milton,  to  a  new  tomb  to  be  there 
built,  near  the  home  to  which  he  expected  to 
return,  prescribing  carefully  the  steps  to  be 
taken,  that  all  might  be  done  reverently.  But 
the  son,  leaving  with  the  other  Tories  at  the 
time  of  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  never  found 
the  opportunity.  The  tomb  with  its  dead,  like 
everything  else  belonging  to  the  old  governor, 
was  sold.  The  canny  patriot  who  bought  it 
had  a  thrift  as  close  as  that  of  the  character  in 
the  "  Pirates  of  Penzance,"  who  appropriates 
in  the  old  burying-ground  on  his  freshly  pur 
chased  estate  the  ancestors  of  the  former  pos 
sessor.  "  I  do  not  know  whose  ancestors  they 
may  formerly  have  been,  but  they  are  now 
mine,"  and  so  he  weeps  among  their  graves 
upon  proper  occasion.  The  governor's  tomb 
had  before  it  a  stone  bearing  the  name  "  Hutch- 
inson,"  and  underneath,  the  finely-carved  es 
cutcheon  of  the  family.  A  great-grandson  of 
the  governor,  on  a  pious  pilgrimage  to  the  spot, 
found  the  old  lettering  erased.  The  armorial 
bearings,  however,  remained  distinct  and  hand 
some,  and  over  them,  as  if  they  were  his  own, 
the  new  proprietor  had  caused  his  own  name  to 
be  carved.  The  coat  of  arms  he  felt  apparently 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE   TORIES.  285 

to  be  part  of  his  bargain  ;  so,  too,  the  buried 
Hutchinsons  beneath.  The  stone  is  still  to  be 
seen  in  its  place  above  the  tomb  on  Copp's  Hill, 
and  under  it  no  doubt  lies,  with  his  appropriated 
ancestors,  the  clever  Whig,  whose  name  it  now 
bears,  snugly  tucked  in,  like  a  hermit-crab  in 
his  stolen  shell,  awaiting  Gabriel's  trump. 

When  Hutchinson  reached  England  his  re 
ception  was  of  the  best.  Lord  Dartmouth  car 
ried  him  to  the  king  without  giving  him  time 
to  change  his  clothes  after  the  journey.  A  con 
versation  of  an  hour  or  two  took  place,  of  which 
he  has  left  a  careful  report,  in  which  both 
king  and  governor  appear  to  good  advantage. 
He  was  offered  a  baronetcy,  and  was  as  well  re 
ceived  as  possible  by  the  people  in  power.  His 
diary,  just  given  to  the  world,  offers  an  unaf 
fected  account  of  his  experiences,  from  which 
the  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  he  bore  him 
self  well  in  his  new  surroundings,  was  felt  by 
good  men  to  have  played  a  creditable  part, 
and  made  all  whom  he  met  regard  him  as  a 
man  of  good  sense.  Not  Samuel  Adams  him 
self  could  have  moved  with  a  stricter  conform 
ity  to  Puritan  standards  in  the  midst  of  a 
life  often  frivolous  and  corrupt.  In  fact,  the 
two  men,  much  as  they  hated  one  another,  were 
in  some  respects  alike.  In  point  of  adroitness 
they  were  not  ill-matched ;  each  sought  what 


286  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

he  believed  to  be  his  country's  good,  with  sin 
cere  patriotism,  in  his  separate  way ;  there  was 
in  each  the  same  indefatigability,  the  same  deep 
gravity  of  character,  combined  with  a  genial 
manner.  From  the  fashionable  amusements  of 
London  Hutchinson  turned  with  disgust.  Gar- 
rick  utterly  displeased  him;  he  could  see  noth 
ing  attractive  in  the  sports  which  he  was  taken 
to  witness.  After  John  Adams's  fashion,  he 
notes  carefully  each  Sunday  the  preacher  and 
the  sermon.  Like  the  "  chief  incendiary,"  his 
ideal  community  would  have  been  his  dear  Bos 
ton  straitened  into  a  "  Christian  Sparta."  "  I 
assure  you,"  he  writes,  "  I  had  rather  die  in  a 
little  country  farm-house  in  New  England,  than 
in  the  best  nobleman's  seat  in  Old  England, 
and  have  therefore  given  no  ear  to  any  pro 
posal  of  settling  here."  So  frequently  in  these 
pages  we  have  the  utterances  of  a  homesick 
spirit,  that  would  gladly  have  left  the  splendors 
and  attentions  of  the  court  of  George  III.  to  re 
turn  to  the  land  he  sincerely  loved.  The  ex 
ile  was  keenly  sensitive  to  opprobrium,  and 
defends  himself  in  his  letters  and  sometimes  in 
more  formal  ways.  Speaking  of  his  letter- 
books  left  behind  in  his  house  at  Milton,  now 
in  the  Massachusetts  archives,  and  from  which 
much  has  been  quoted  in  this  volume,  he 
says :  — 


HUTCHINSON  AND   THE  TORIES.  287 

"When  I  was  threatened  by  the  tea-mobs,  I  car 
ried  them  to  Milton,  and  when  I  was  obliged  to  re 
turn  to  the  Castle  upon  Gen.  Gage's  arrival,  it  did 
not  come  into  my  mind  where  I  had  put  them.  I  ana 
sure  there  is  nothing  in  them  but  what  will  evidence 
an  upright  aim,  and  an  endeavor  to  keep  off  the 
miseries  which  in  spite  of  my  endeavors  a  few  men 
have  brought  upon  the  country;  and  if  they  will  take 
the  whole  of  them,  they  will  find  a  uniform  plan  for 
preserving  the  authority  of  Parliament,  and  at  the 
same  time  indulging  the  colonies  in  every  point  in 
which  the  people  imagined  they  were  aggrieved." 

To  attacks  which  were  made  upon  him  by 
the  Whigs  in  Parliament  he  replied  by  a  for 
mal  "  Vindication,"  in  which  he  speaks  of  him 
self  in  the  third  person.  The  paper  was  not 
printed  then,  and  appears  now  for  the  first  time 
in  the  diary.  It  is  a  document  full  of  clear 
ness  and  dignity,  and  has  much  interest  to  the 
student  of  our  Revolutionary  history.  A  pas 
sage  from  this  follows :  — 

"  It  is  asserted  that  no  one  fact  has  ever  appeared 
to  have  been  materially  misrepresented  by  him,  nor 
any  one  proposal  made  unfriendly  to  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  mankind  in  general,  or  tending  to  take 
from  the  Province  of  which  he  was  governor,  the 
privileges  enjoyed  by  its  charter,  or  any  powers  or 
privileges  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies,  which 
can  be  made  to  consist  with  their  relation  to  Parlia- 


288  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

ment  as  the  supreme  authority  of   the   British  do 
minions.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  a  remark  more  ancient  than  any  British  col 
ony  that  '  Gubernatorum  vituperatio  populo  placet,' 
and  every  governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  for  near 
a  century  past,  has  by  experience  found  the  truth 
of  it." 

With  this  outburst  we  dismiss  the  ruined 
exile  from  our  attention. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE   FIRST   CONGRESS. 

As  Hutchinson  looked  his  last  upon  Boston 
harbor,  having  his  mind  cheered  by  a  warm  ad 
dress,  expressing  for  him  deep  respect,  which  had 
been  sent  in  to  him  by  a  hundred  and  twenty 
respectable  merchants,  and  by  a  second  similar 
address  coming  from  the  lawyers,  he  must  have 
heard  the  tolling  of  the  bells  that  announced 
the  closing  of  the  port  of  Boston  in  retaliation 
for  the  destruction  of  the  tea. 

The  steps  which  the  government  had  taken 
were  decided  enough,  but  the  instrument 
through  whom  they  were  to  be  carried  into 
execution  was  a  man  far  different  from  the  as 
tute,  energetic  Hutchinson.  Gage  was  mild  in 
temper,  and  of  very  moderate  ability.  His 
disposition  was  to  treat  Boston  good-naturedly, 
and  it  was  only  when  fortified  by  others  that 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  put  the  Port  Bill  in 
force.  The  Whig  leaders,  relieved  from  the  op 
position  of  their  great  antagonist,  manoeuvred 
and  drove  forward  relentlessly,  outwitting  or 

19 


290  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

overriding  the  general  at  every  step,  until  his 
weak  amiability  gave  way  to  outbreaks  of  testy 
ill-nature. 

The  General  Court  which  had  convened  on 
the  26th  of  May  was  memorable  as  the  last 
under  the  colonial  charter.  The  other  colo 
nies,  as  well  as  Massachusetts,  were  now  ripe 
for  the  Congress,  and  Samuel  Adams,  who  in 
the  gathering  Revolution  had  attained  in  his 
own  Province  an  almost  autocratic  ascendency, 
prepared  to  secure  the  nomination  of  dele 
gates.  For  a  few  days  nothing  could  be  done, 
for  Gage  prorogued  the  Court,  to  meet  early 
in  June  at  Salem.  The  session  presently  took 
place  in  that  town,  and  never  had  the  hand  of 
the  great  master  been  so  deft  and  at  the  same 
time  so  daring :  one  moment  pulling  strings 
with  the  nicest  caution,  the  next  it  was,  as  it 
were,  clenched  and  delivered  in  a  telling  blow. 
But  whether  in  the  form  of  flattering  palm  or 
doubled  fist,  it  ruled  the  hour  omnipotently, 
and  brought  to  pass  a  triumphant  success. 

Samuel  Adams,  working  with  the  Commit 
tee  of  Correspondence  to  the  last  moment,  then 
hurrying  over  the  country  roads  to  Salem,  was 
late  in  reaching  the  place  of  meeting,  giving 
much  anxiety  to  the  patriots,  who  followed  him 
now  like  children,  and  much  joy  to  the  Tories, 
for  the  report  spread  that  at  last  the  soldiers 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.     291 

had  seized  him.  While  the  Assembly  waited, 
he  entered  the  hall.  The  Tories,  made  bold  by 
the  presence  in  town  of  a  general  as  chief 
magistrate,  with  soldiers  at  his  back,  bore 
themselves  with  much  arrogance.  The  pres 
sure  of  the  crowd  of  spectators  in  the  hall  in 
which  the  court  was  to  assemble  was  consider 
able,  and  a  group  of  Tories  had  taken  posses 
sion  of  the  space  about  the  chair  appropriated 
to  the  clerk.  When  Samuel  Adams  entered, 
one  of  their  number,  in  a  gold-laced  coat  and 
otherwise  richly  dressed,  had  seated  himself  in 
the  chair,  which  he  seemed  disposed  to  retain. 
"  Mr.  Speaker,  where  is  the  place  for  your 
clerk  ? "  said  Samuel  Adams,  with  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  intruder  and  the  group  that 
surrounded  him.  The  speaker  pointed  to  the 
chair  and  desk.  "  Sir,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  "  my 
company  will  not  be  pleasant  to  the  gentlemen 
who  occupy  it.  I  trust  they  will  remove  to 
another  part  of  the  house."  The  Tories  gave 
way  before  him,  and  his  bearing  soon  dispelled 
the  idea  with  which  some  of  the  Tories  had 
flattered  themselves,  that  Samuel  Adams  had 
been  delayed  by  his  fears. 

The  House  at  once  after  organization  pro 
tested  against  the  removal  from  Boston.  The 
Council  presented  to  the  governor  a  respectful 
address ;  but  when  at  last  a  wish  was  expressed 


292  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

that  his  administration  might  be  a  happy  con 
trast  to  that  of  his  two  immediate  predeces 
sors,  Gage  angrily  interrupted  the  chairman, 
refused  to  listen  farther,  and  denounced  the 
address  as  insulting  to  the  king  and  privy 
council,  and  to  himself.  Affairs  were  indeed 
critical.  Boston,  with  many  of  its  Whigs  weak- 
kneed  and  its  latent  Toryism  all  brought  to 
the  surface  and  made  demonstrative  by  the  dis 
play  of  power  by  the  ministry,  was  in  danger 
of  adopting  a  measure  for  giving  compensation 
for  the  tea,  and  perhaps  going  still  farther  in 
the  path  of  concession,  to  win  relief  from  the 
calamity  that  had  come.  A  town-meeting  was 
called.  Samuel  Adams  could  not  be  in  two 
places  at  once,  and  to  Joseph  Warren  was  left 
the  responsibility  of  bringing  things  to  a  good 
issue.  Warren,  gallant  as  he  was,  felt  his  heart 
sink.  He  was  like  a  general  of  division,  who, 
having  fought  long  with  great  effect  under  the 
eye  of  an  old  field-marshal,  suddenly  in  a  day 
of  the  utmost  danger  finds  himself  intrusted 
with  an  independent  command.  He  begged  the 
generalissimo  to  come  back.  "  I  think  your  at 
tendance  can  by  no  means  be  dispensed  with 
over  Friday,  as  I  believe  we  shall  have  a  warm 
engagement."  But  on  that  very  day  —  it  was 
the  17th  of  June,  one  year  before  Bunker  Hill 
—  there  was  work  to  be  done  at  Salem  too,  and 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.     293 

Warren  had  to  fight  it  out  by  himself.  With 
John  Adams  in  the  chair  as  moderator,  the 
lieutenant  on  the  floor  brought  all  to  a  victo 
rious  issue.  At  that  time  he  first  realized  his 
own  great  power  and  became  self-reliant.  Mean 
while  Samuel  Adams,  in  his  field,  having  bur 
rowed  for  days  like  a  skillful  engineer,  at  length 
sprung  his  mine,  and  in  the  most  audacious  of 
assaults  carried  the  position. 

A  larger  number  of  representatives  had  ap 
peared  than  ever  before,  drawn  together  by  the 
greatness  of  the  crisis,  many  of  whom  were  dis 
posed  to  be  reactionary,  if  not  actually  Tories. 
A  committee  of  nine  on  the  state  of  the  Prov 
ince,  consisting  of  the  principal  members  of 
the  Assembly,  and  of  which  Samuel  Adams 
was  chairman,  had  been  appointed  in  May  be 
fore  the  prorogation.  By  this  committee  all 
action  must  be  initiated.  If  a  hint  should 
reach  Gage  that  the  Assembly  were  engaged 
in  the  election  of  delegates  to  a  Congress,  it 
was  known  that  he  would  at  once  prorogue 
the  Court  to  prevent  such  action.  Samuel  Ad 
ams  studied  his  problem  warily.  Sounding 
the  members  of  his  committee,  he  found  some 
of  them  doubtful  in  the  cause.  In  particular 
Daniel  Leonard  of  Taunton,  a  man  of  ability, 
who  is  now  known  to  have  been  one  of  Hutch- 
inson's  own  sharpest  writers,  was  to  be  dreaded. 


294  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

The  plan  pursued  was  to  entertain  in  meetings 
of  the  committee  vague  propositions  for  concil 
iation,  until  the  lukewarm  or  Tory  members 
should  form  the  idea  that  some  compromise 
was  likely  to  be  proposed.  Meantime  Samuel 
Adams  secretly  made  sure  of  those  in  the  com 
mittee  upon  whom  he  could  rely,  and  gradually 
ascertained  precisely  what  other  members  of 
the  House  could  be  counted  upon.  All  must 
be  done  with  the  most  velvet-footed  caution, 
and  days  must  pass.  A  sufficient  majority 
must  be  secured  and  instructed,  so  that  the 
measure  might  be  carried  with  little  debate, 
as  soon  as  proposed,  and  no  hint  of  it  reach 
Gage. 

The  days  passed.  At  meetings  of  the  com 
mittee  the  old  cat  purred  of  conciliation  with 
half-closed,  sleepy  eyes,  until  the  doubtful  men 
were  completely  deceived.  Leonard  himself,  at 
length,  went  home  to  Taunton  on  legal  busi 
ness,  feeling  that  if  Sam  Adams  was  ready  to 
yield,  there  was  no  need  of  being  watchful. 
At  once  Adams  set  one  of  his  best  lieutenants, 
James  Warren  of  Plymouth,  an  apt  and  faith 
ful  pupil,  to  keep  the  committee  in  play,  while 
he  worked  as  secretly  but  more  actively  out 
side.  At  first  he  was  sure  of  but  five ;  in 
two  days  he  could  count  on  thirty  ;  at  length 
he  had  under  his  hand  a  majority,  and  all  was 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.    295 

ready.  One  feels  that  if  sharp-eyed  Hutchin- 
son  had  been  on  the  spot,  there  would  have 
been  trouble.  Gage,  however,  satisfied  with 
his  show  of  energy  in  rebuking  the  Council, 
and  abundantly  assured  that  the  temper  of  the 
Assembly  was  peaceful,  looked  amiably  on  with 
his  hands  folded. 

The  spring  at  last  was  like  lightning.  On  Fri 
day,  the  17th  of  June,  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  members  were  present.  Sam  Adams,  at 
the  head  of  the  committee  on  the  state  of  the 
Province,  suddenly  caused  the  door  to  be  locked, 
and  charged  the  doorkeeper  to  let  no  one  in  or  i 
out.  The  next  instant  a  series  of  resolves  was  \ 
produced  providing  for  the  appointment  of  James 
Bowdoin,  Thomas  Gushing,  Samuel  Adams,  John 
Adams,  and  Robert  Treat  Paine,  to  meet  the 
delegates  of  other  colonial  Assemblies,  on  the 
1st  of  September,  at  Philadelphia,  or  any  other 
place  that  should  be  decided  upon.  The  House 
was  at  once  in  an  uproar,  and  an  earnest  effort 
was  made  to  choke  off  the  measure.  But  the 
majority  rose  in  its  power ;  the  lieutenants, 
secretly  drilled,  were  each  in  place,  and  the 
arch  conspirator,  cool  and  genial,  but  adroit  and 
forceful  as  any  man  who  ever  ruled  a  senate, 
held  every  string  in  his  hand.  Attempts  were 
made  by  Tory  members  to  leave  the  hall,  when 
it  became  plain  how  things  must  go.  The  door- 


296  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

keeper,  beset  and  browbeaten  by  heated  men, 
grew  uneasy  under  the  responsibility  which 
was  placed  upon  him  ;  whereupon  Sam  Adams, 
with  a  curious  inversion  of  the  great  Cromwel- 
lian  precedent,  but  with  a  spirit  as  self-reliant 
and  straightforward  as  that  of  the  other  great 
Puritan  brewer  himself,  did  not  turn  his  Par 
liament  out,  but  bolted  them  in.  Making  sure 
that  the  door  was  still  fast,  he  put  the  key  into 
his  own  pocket. 

Some  debate  there  must  be,  and  while  it  went 
forward  a  Tory  member,  pleading  sickness,  in 
some  way  did  manage  to  make  his  escape, 
and  hurried  at  once  to  Gage  with  the  news. 
Forthwith  the  general  prepared  the  shortest 
possible  message  of  prorogation,  and  his  secre 
tary  hurried  with  it  to  the  hall.  The  door  was 
still  locked,  with  the  key  in  Samuel  Adams's 
pocket,  and  even  Thomas  Flucker,  Esquire,  no 
inconsiderable  personage  himself,  and  now  the 
messenger  of  the  governor  and  commander-in- 
chief,  demanded  admission  in  vain.  The  fact 
that  he  was  without  was  imparted  to  the 
speaker,  who  communicated  it  formally  to  the 
House,  but  the  majority  ordered  the  door  to 
be  kept  fast.  By  this  time  rumors  of  a  great 
legislative  coup  cTetat  were  flying  through  the 
town  and  a  crowd  began  to  collect  in  the  ap 
proaches  to  the  hall.  To  these,  for  want  of 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.     297 

a  better  audience,  and  also  to  several  mem 
bers  of  the  House  who  had  come  late  to  the 
session,  Flucker  read  his  message.  No  tac 
tics,  meantime,  could  long  stave  off  the  end  at 
which  Sam  Adams  aimed.  The  Tories  suc 
cumbed,  the  doubtful  went  over  in  a  troop  to 
the  Whig  side,  the  delegates  were  elected  with 
only  twelve  dissenting  voices,  and  five  hun 
dred  pounds  were  voted  to  pay  their  expenses. 
Since  no  money  could  be  drawn  from  the  pub 
lic  treasury  without  the  governor's  consent, 
every  town  in  the  Province  was  assessed  in 
proportion  to  its  last  tax-list,  to  provide  the 
sum.  Resolves  were  then  passed  for  the  re 
lief  of  Boston  and  Charlestown,  as  the  special 
sufferers  by  the  Port  Bill,  renouncing  the  use 
of  tea  and  all  goods  and  manufactures  com 
ing  from  Great  Britain,  and  encouraging  home 
productions  to  the  utmost.  All  that  was  nec 
essary  having  been  fully  and  satisfactorily  per 
formed,  Mr.  Flucker  was  admitted,  the  Assem 
bly  with  all  grace  submitted  to  the  mandate  of 
prorogation,  and  the  members  scattered.  The 
horse  was  stolen,  and  General  Gage  locked  the 
barn-door  with  great  vigor. 

Samuel  Adams  dispatched  the  news  by 
printed  circular  to  the  selectmen  of  the  towns, 
with  the  apportionment  made  in  each  case  for 
the  fund  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  dele- 


298  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

gates,  and  himself  received  the  sums  that  were 
sent.  Notice  was  sent,  too,  by  Gushing,  as 
speaker,  to  all  the  colonies,  informing  them  of 
the  action  of  Massachusetts.  This  it  was  which 
had  been  generally  awaited,  and  now,  following 
in  her  wake,  the  thirteen  colonies,  from  New 
Hampshire  to  Georgia,  prepared  for  the  great 
Congress  at  Philadelphia  on  September  1. 

The  interval  between  the  prorogation  of  the 
legislature  and  the  departure  of  the  delegates 
to  Philadelphia  was  by  no  means  an  idle  one 
for  the  patriots.  As  chairman  of  the  commit 
tees  for  devising  plans  for  the  relief  of  the  poor 
and  distributing  the  donations  which  began  to 
arrive  from  all  quarters,  Samuel  Adams  was 
kept  busy.  On  the  27th  of  June  occurred  a 
town-meeting,  memorable  as  being  the  last  oc 
casion  upon  which  the  Tories  made  an  effort  to 
stem  in  that  community  the  course  of  the  Revo 
lution  ;  after  this  they  threw  themselves  back 
upon  the  military  power.  Taking  advantage 
of  the  public  distress,  which  became  every  day 
greater,  a  meeting  was  called  by  them  at  Fan- 
euil  Hall.  In  the  enforced  idleness  of  all 
classes,  a  multitude  attended,  and,  as  usual,  the 
meeting  adjourned  to  the  Old  South.  A  few 
weeks  previous,  a  "  solemn  league  and  cove 
nant  "  against  using  British  productions  of 
every  kind  had  been  drawn  up  by  Warren, 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.     299 

and  had  received  many  signatures.  This  doc 
ument  having  been  read,  a  Tory  denounced 
it,  and  presently  after  a  vote  of  censure  was 
moved  upon  the  Committee  of  Correspond 
ence,  providing  also  for  its  annihilation.  Sam 
uel  Adams,  the  moderator,  quickly  left  the 
chair  to  Gushing,  taking  his  place  on  the  floor 
as  champion  of  the  Committee  of  which  he  had 
been  the  creator  and  the  ruling  spirit.  The 
debate  was  long  and  vehement,  lasting  until 
dark  of  the  long  June  day,  and  was  resumed 
the  following  forenoon.  It  was  conducted  in 
the  presence  of  an  audience  of  ruined  men; 
merchants  whose  idle  ships  had  nothing  be 
fore  them  but  to  rot  at  the  wharves,  mechanics 
whose  labor  had  suddenly  become  a  drug  in  the 
market,  sailors  to  whom  the  sea  was  barred. 
A  slight  yielding  from  the  course  into  which 
the  Whigs  had  struck  would  remove  at  once  the 
incubus.  It  was  not  at  all  necessary  to  become 
Tories ;  certain  small  concessions,  like  the  pay 
ment  for  the  tea  and  an  admission  that  its  de 
struction  had  been  a  mistake,  would  be  enough. 
Even  Josiah  Quincy  had  advised  moderation 
at  the  time,  and  now  great  patriots  like  Frank 
lin  declared  this  to  be  a  proper  step. 
— To  Samuel  Adams,  who  saw  no  safety  in 
such  a  course,  the  time  was  indeed  critical. 
But  when  the  question  was  put  as  to  the  anni- 


300  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

hilation  of  the  committee,  the  meeting  "  by  a 
great  majority  "  1  voted  in  the  negative,  and 
then  almost  unanimously  the  resolve  passed  : 
"  That  the  town  bear  open  testimony  that  they 
are  abundantly  satisfied  of  the  upright  inten 
tions  and  much  approve  of  the  honest  zeal  of 
the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  and  desire 
that  they  will  persevere  with  their  usual  ac 
tivity  and  firmness,  continuing  steadfast  in  the 
way  of  well-doing."  This  was  an  indorsement 
of  an  unyielding  course.  The  Tories,  so  utterly 
defeated  in  town-meeting,  signed  a  protest, 
which  was  widely  distributed,  against  the  "  sol 
emn  league  and  covenant ;  "  but  their  sleepless 
and  implacable  opponent  stormed  at  them  as 
"  Candidus  "  from  the  columns  of  the  u  Boston 
Gazette."  The  "  solemn  league  and  covenant " 
spread  throughout  the  Massachusetts  towns, 
through  all  New  England,  and  into  the  colonies 
in  general,  becoming  a  most  formidable  non 
importation  agreement,  which  the  royal  gov 
ernors  denounced  in  vain. 

The  patriots  now  lived  in  daily  fear  of  the 
arrest  of  Samuel  Adams  and  his  prominent  sup 
porters.  Urgent  letters  are  extant,  entreating 
him  to  be  on  his  guard ;  steps  were  taken  to 
make  his  house  more  secure.  But  Gage  de- 

1  These  words  in  the  town  records  are  underscored  by  Wil 
liam  Cooper,  showing  his  strong  feeling. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.    301 

layed  ;  the  matter  was  left  largely  to  his  discre 
tion,  and  he  was  quite  justified  in  thinking  it 
would  be  imprudent.  A  public  seizure  would 
have  been  the  height  of  rashness,  and  a  private 
arrest  would  have  brought  upon  the  British 
force,  still  far  from  large,  though  it  was  gradu 
ally  increasing,  such  an  avalanche  of  patriots  as 
would  infallibly  have  crushed  it.  It  came  very 
near  being  the  case  that  positive  orders  were 
sent  to  Gage  for  the  seizure.  Says  Hutchin- 
son  :  "  The  lords  of  the  privy  council  had  their 
pens  in  their  hands  in  order  to  sign  the  war 
rant  to  apprehend  Adams,  Molineux,  and 
other  principal  incendiaries,  try  them,  and  if 
found  guilty,  put  them  to  death."  Lord  Mans 
field  told  Hutchinson  that  the  warrant  was  not 
sent,  "because  the  attorney  and  solicitor  gen 
eral  were  in  doubt  whether  the  evidence  was 
sufficient  to  convict  them ;  but  he  said  things 
would  never  be  right  until  some  of  them  were 
brought  over." 

More  insidious  assaults  were  made,  however, 
without  success.  Hutchinson  in  his  day  had 
known  Adams  too  well  to  try  such  means. 
"  Why  hath  not  Mr.  Adams  been  taken  off 
from  his  opposition  by  an  office  ?  "  inquired 
members  of  the  ministry.  "  Such  is  the  obsti 
nacy  and  inflexible  disposition  of  the  man,"  was 
the  reply,  "  that  he  never  would  be  conciliated 


302  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

by  any  office  of  gift  whatever."  Gage  was  less 
wise,  and  made  a  trial  which  had  an  ignomin 
ious  failure.  In  1818  Mr.  Adams's  daughter  re 
lated:  The  governor  sent,  by  Colonel  Fenton, 
who  commanded  one  of  the  newly  arrived  regi 
ments,  a  confidential  and  verbal  message,  prom 
ising  Adams  great  gifts  and  advancement  if  he 
would  recede,  and  saying  it  was  the  advice  of 
Governor  Gage  to  him  not  to  incur  the  further 
displeasure  of  his  majesty.  Adams  listened  with 
apparent  interest  to  this  recital,  until  the  mes 
senger  had  concluded.  Then  rising,  he  replied, 
glowing  with  indignation  :  "  Sir,  I  trust  I  have 
long  since  made  my  peace  with  the  King  of 
kings.  No  personal  consideration  shall  induce 
me  to  abandon  the  righteous  cause  of  my  coun 
try.  Tell  Governor  Gage  it  is  the  advice  of 
Samuel  Adams  to  him  no  longer  to  insult  the 
feelings  of  an  exasperated  people."  There  is 
some  reason  also  for  supposing  that  he  was 
offered  afterward  a  pension  of  two  thousand 
guineas,  and  a  patent  of  nobility  in  the  Ameri 
can  peerage  which  was  projected. 

Early  in  August  Gage  received  official  news 
of  the  act  of  Parliament  changing  the  charter, 
which  had  been  for  some  time  unofficially 
known,  and  instructions  to  put  it  at  once  in 
force.  Thirty-six  councilors  were  nominated 
by  the  crown,  according  to  the  new  method, 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.     303 

called  the  "  mandamus "  councilors ;  of  these 
twenty-four  accepted.  They  at  once  met,  and 
other  arbitrary  measures  were  taken.  The 
Committee  of  Correspondence  retaliated  by 
recommending  that  all  men  should  practice 
military  drill,  and  that  a  provincial  congress 
should  be  summoned.  Preliminary  to  this  the 
counties  met  in  convention,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  delegates  from  the  towns  of  Middlesex  as 
sembling  at  Concord,  and  the  towns  of  Essex 
convening  at  Ipswich.  Gage,  meantime,  took 
cannon  from  Cambridge,  and  in  defiance  of  the 
protests  of  the  selectmen  began  to  fortify  Bos 
ton  Neck. 

During  the  summer  of  1774,  Samuel  Adams, 
while  preparing  for  his  departure  to  Philadel 
phia,  continued  to  direct  affairs  in  straitened 
Boston.  He  was  the  leading  member  of  a  com 
mittee  of  safety,  whose  particular  work  was  to 
afford  employment  to  the  poor  in  the  repairing 
of  streets  and  building  of  wharves  on  the  town's 
land.  His  correspondence  continues.  To  R. 
H.  Lee  he  writes :  "  It  is  the  virtue  of  the  yeo 
manry  we  are  chiefly  to  depend  upon."  The 
sentence  lets  us  know  the  kind  of  democracy 
in  which  Adams  believed.  His  disposition 
was  to  put  the  fullest  reliance  upon  the  peo 
ple,  yet  sometimes  he  is  careful  to  specify  that 
it  is  the  "  yeomanry  "  or  "  the  bulk  of  the  peo- 


304  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

pie"  who  are  to  be  built  upon.  As  he  dis 
trusted  the  fine  world  which  was  ready  to  cringe 
before  power,  he  recognized  too  the  possibility 
of  danger  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale,  from 
the  "  mob."  In  March  of  the  present  year 
there  had  been  a  riot  at  Marblehead,  the  peo 
ple  burning  lawlessly  a  small-pox  hospital. 
Through  Elbridge  Gerry  the  facts  came  to 
Samuel  Adams,  and  the  Assembly  were  peti 
tioned  for  armed  assistance.  It  would  have 
been  mortifying  to  the  patriots  and  a  triumph 
to  the  Tories  if  the  Assembly  had  been  brought 
to  use  arms  against  the  people.  The  House  de 
layed,  probably  through  Adams's  influence,  and 
the  matter  meanwhile  fortunately  quieted  it 
self.  At  a  later  time,  however,  in  the  Shays 
rebellion,  we  shall  find  the  man  of  the  town- 
meeting  standing  as  sternly  against  the  mis 
guided  people  as  he  ever  did  against  Tory  or 
crown  official.  "  Vox  populi  vox  Dei  "  was  a 
sentiment  to  which  he  fully  subscribed,  but  it 
must  be  the  voice  of  the  substantial  people. 

Donations  came  from  near  and  far  to  the  sup 
port  of  suffering  Boston.  Salem  and  the  ports 
adjacent  commonly  received  what  was  sent ; 
and  thence  the  carriage  was  made  by  land  to  the 
centre.  As  the  time  drew  near  for  the  departure 
to  Philadelphia,  Samuel  Adams  gave  his  parting 
charge  to  the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  a 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  C0JV 

charge  which  they  spoke  of  as  "  instrci 
from  which  they  must  on  no  account  deviat 
authoritative  had  his  word  become.  The  very 
last  business  performed  was  to  arrange  for  a 
convention  of  deputies  from  Boston  and  the  ad 
joining  towns  at  some  inland  point,  out  of  the 
way  of  interruptions.  This,  it  was  felt,  might 
pave  the  way  for  a  general  congress  of  the 
Province,  which  was  likely  before  long  to  be 
wanted.  The  execution  of  this  project,  and 
the  general  direction  of  affairs,  was  to  lie  with 
Joseph  Warren,  who,  since  the  "  Port  Bill  meet 
ing  "  of  June  17,  had  fully  found  his  powers, 
and  during  the  short  remnant  of  his  life  was 
to  show  himself  a  man  of  great  executive  force. 

And  now  let  us  pause  for  a  moment,  as  Sam-  ^ 
uel  Adams  is  on  the  point  of  leaving  Massachu 
setts  for  the  first  time,  to  look  at  his  home  life. 

He  still  occupied  the  house  in  Purchase  \ 
Street,  the  estate  connected  with  which  had,  as 
time  went  forward,  through  the  carelessness  of 
its  preoccupied  owner  become  narrowed  to  a 
scanty  tract.  It  was  nevertheless  a  sightly 
place,  from  which  stretched  seaward  before 
the  eye  the  island-studded  harbor,  with  the 
many  ships,  the  bastions  of  the  Castle,  low  ly 
ing  to  the  right,  and  landward  the  town,  ris 
ing  fair  upon  its  hills.  Samuel  Adams,  shortly 

20 


306  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

before  this  time,  had  been  able,  probably  with 
the  help  of  friends,  to  put  his  home  in  good 
order,  and  managed  to  be  hospitable.  For 
apparently  life  went  forward  in  his  home,  if 
frugally,  not  parsimoniously,  his  admirable  wife 
making  it  possible  for  him,  from  his  small  in 
come  as  clerk  of  the  House,  to  maintain  a  de 
cent  housekeeping.  His  son,  now  twenty-two 
years  old,  was  studying  medicine  with  Dr. 
Warren,  after  a  course  at  Harvard,  a  young 
man  for  whom  much  could  be  hoped.  His 
daughter  was  a  promising  girl  of  seventeen. 
With  the  young  people  and  their  intimates  the 
father  was  cordial  and  genial.  He  had  an  ear 
for  music  and  a  pleasant  voice  in  singing,  a 
practice  which  he  much  enjoyed.  The  house 
was  strictly  religious ;  grace  was  said  at  each 
meal,  and  the  Bible  is  still  preserved  from 
which  some  member  of  the  household  read 
aloud  each  night.  Old  Surry,  a  slave  woman 
given  to  Mrs.  Adams  in  1765,  and  who  was 
freed  upon  coming  into  her  possession,  lived  in 
the  family  nearly  fifty  years,  showing  devoted 
attachment.  When  slavery  was  abolished  in 
Massachusetts,  papers  of  manumission  were 
made  out  for  her  in  due  form  ;  but  these  she 
threw  into  the  fire  in  anger,  saying  she  had 
lived  too  long  to  be  trifled  with.  The  servant 
boy  whom  Samuel  Adams  carefully  and  kindly 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.    307 

reared,  became  afterwards  a  mechanic  of  char 
acter,  and  worked  efficiently  in  his  former  mas 
ter's  behalf  when  at  length  in  old  age  Adams 
was  proposed  for  governor.  Nor  must  Queue 
be  forgotten,  the  big,  intelligent  NeAvfoundland 
dog,  who  appreciated  perfectly  what  was  due 
to  his  position  as  the  dog  of  Sam  Adams.  He 
had  a  vast  antipathy  to  the  British  uniform. 
He  was  cut  and  shot  in  several  places  by  sol 
diers,  in  retaliation  for  his  own  sharp  attacks  ; 
for  the  patriotic  Queue  anticipated  even  the 
"  embattled  farmers  "  of  Concord  bridge  in  in 
augurating  hostilities,  and  bore  to  his  grave 
honorable  scars  from  his  fierce  encounters.  The 
upholders  of  the  house  of  Hanover  had  received 
ho  heartier  bites  than  those  of  Queue  since  the 
days  of  the  Jacobites. 

Until  now,  in  his  fifty-third  year,  Samuel 
Adams  had  never  left  his  native  town  except 
for  places  a  few  miles  distant.  The  expenses 
of  the  journey  and  the  sojourn  in  Philadelphia 
were  arranged  for  by  the  legislative  appropri 
ation.  But  the  critical  society  of  a  populous 
town,  and  the  picked  men  of  the  thirteen  colo 
nies  were  to  be  encountered.  A  certain  sump- 
tuousness  in  living  and  apparel  would  be  not 
only  fitting,  but  necessary  in  the  deputies,  that 
the  great  Province  which  they  represented 


308  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

might  suffer  no  dishonor.  Samuel  Adams  him 
self  probably  would  have  been  quite  satisfied 
to  appear  in  the  old  red  coat  of  1770,  in  which 
Copley  had  painted  him,  and  which  no  doubt 
his  wife's  careful  darning  still  held  together ; 
but  his  townsmen  arranged  it  differently.  The 
story  will  be  best  told  in  the  words  of  a  writer 
of  the  time  :  — 

"  The  ultimate  wish  and  desire  of  the  high  govern 
ment  party  is  to  get  Samuel  Adams  out  of  the  way, 
when  they  think  they  may  accomplish  every  of  their 
plans  ;  but,  however  some  may  despise  him,  he  has 
certainly  very  many  friends.  For,  not  long  since, 
some  persons  (their  names  unknown)  sent  and  asked 
his  permission  to  build  him  a  new  barn,  the  old  one 
being  decayed,  which  was  executed  in  a  few  days.  A 
second  sent  to  ask  leave  to  repair  his  house,  which 
was  thoroughly  effected  soon.  A  third  sent  to  beg  the 
favor  of  him  to  call  at  a  tailor's  shop,  and  be  meas 
ured  for  a  suit  of  clothes,  and  choose  his  cloth,  which 
were  finished  and  sent  home  for  his  acceptance.  A 
fourth  presented  him  with  a  new  wig,  a  fifth  with  a 
new  hat,  a  sixth  with  six  pair  of  the  best  silk  hose,  a 
seventh  with  six  pair  of  fine  thread  ditto,  an  eighth 
with  six  pair  of  shoes,  and  a  ninth  modestly  inquired 
of  him  whether  his  finances  were  not  rather  low  than 
otherwise.  He  replied  it  was  true  that  was  the  case, 
but  he  was  very  indifferent  about  these  matters,  so 
that  his  poor  abilities  were  of  any  service  to  the 
public ;  upon  which  the  gentleman  obliged  him  to 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.     309 

accept  of  a  purse  containing  about  fifteen  or  twenty 
Johannes."  l 

On  the  10th  of  August  the  four  delegates  set 
forth :  Thomas  Gushing  (who  took  the  place  of 
Bowdoin,  kept  at  home  by  the  sickness  of  his 
wife),  Samuel  and  John  Adams,  and  Robert 
Treat  Paine.  They  left  the  house  of  Gushing 
in  considerable  state.  "Am  told,"  says  John 
Andrews,  "  they  made  a  very  respectable  parade 
in  sight  of  five  of  the  regiments  encamped  on 
the  Common,  being  in  a  coach  and  four,  pre 
ceded  by  two  white  servants  well  mounted  and 
armed,  with  four  blacks  behind  in  livery,  two 
on  horseback  and  two  footmen."  At  Water- 
town  they  dined  with  a  large  number  of  their 
friends,  who  drove  out  thither  for  the  final 
parting.  Hence  they  proceeded  in  a  coach  ar 
ranged  for  their  special  convenience.  The  jour 
ney,  with  the  great  attentions  they  received,  is 
graphically  related  in  the  diary  of  John  Adams, 
who  was,  as  the  reader  of  these  pages  by  this 
time  well  knows,  a  most  admirable  observer 
and  reporter,  in  part  for  the  same  reason  Lowell 
gives  for  Margaret  Fuller's  sharpness  :  — 

"  A  person  must  surely  see  well,  if  he  try, 
The  whole  of  whose  being  's  a  capital  I." 

1  John  Andrews  to  William  Barrell,  Boston,  August  11, 
1774.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.  1865.  The  new  suit  was  given 
just  before  the  departure  for  Philadelphia. 


810  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

In  Connecticut  they  were  received  with  great 
circumstance.  Cavalcades  accompanied  them 
from  town  to  town. 

"  At  four  we  made  New  Haven.  Seven  miles 
out  of  town,  at  a  tavern,  we  met  a  great  number  of 
carriages  and  horsemen  who  had  come  out  to  meet 
us.  The  sheriff  of  the  county,  and  constable  of  the 
town,  and  the  justices  of  the  peace  were  in  the  train. 
As  we  were  coming,  we  met  others  to  the  amount 
of  I  know  not  what  number.  As  we  came  into  the 
town,  all  the  bells  in  town  were  set  to  ringing,  and 
the  people,  men,  women,  and  children,  were  crowding 
at  the  doors  and  windows  as  if  it  was  to  see  a  coro 
nation.  At  nine  o'clock  the  cannon  were  fired,  about 
a  dozen  guns,  I  think." 

Bears,  the  landlord  of  the  tavern,  afterwards 
tells  them :  "  the  parade  which  was  made  to 
introduce  us  into  town  was  a  sudden  proposal 
in  order  to  divert  the  populace  from  erecting 
a  liberty-pole,"  engineered  by  the  Tories. 

Rarely  enough  in  his  life  did  Sam  Adams 
take  a  holiday,  and  now  one  thinks  that,  with  so 
much  that  was  tremendous  impending,  a  man 
could  hardly  be  in  a  mood  for  the  enjoyment  of 
new  scenes  and  people,  and  the  reception  of 
honors,  however  flattering.  He  had  long  lived, 
however,  with  his  head  in  the  lion's  mouth,  and 
though  the  beast  roared  as  never  before,  he  had 
good  reason  to  feel  that  in  the  general  rising 
of  America,  of  which  he  everywhere  found  to- 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  FIRST  CONGRESS.    311 

kens,  the  bite  might  at  last  be  risked.  As  they 
passed  onward  in  the  pleasant  summer  weather, 
there  was  no  doubt  much  to  enjoy  ;  but  whether 
his  experiences  were  agreeable  or  otherwise,  of 
matters  purely  personal  he  makes  no  more  men 
tion  now  than  at  other  times.  The  two  kins 
men,  so  long  already  companions,  and  now  in 
closer  relations  than  ever,  good  friends  though 
they  were,  were  in  some  points  strangely  unlike. 
Honest  John  parades  himself  artlessly  in  every 
page  he  writes,  now  in  self-chastening,  now  in 
comfortable  self-complacency.  Reticent  Sam, 
on  the  other  hand,  though  he  lived  with  the  pen 
in  his  hand,  and  wrote  reams  every  year  which 
went  into  print,  is  as  silent  as  to  himself  as  if 
he  had  been  dumb.  Whether  he  was  elated  or 
discouraged,  happy  or  wretched,  his  mood  rarely 
leaves  on  his  page  any  trace  of  itself. 

The  biographer  of  Samuel  Adams,  therefore, 
is  thankful  enough  for  the  help  rendered  him 
by  the  unreserved  Hutchinson  and  the  naive 
chat  of  the  Braintree  statesman.  So  in  the 
agreeable  record  of  the  latter  we  follow  the 
deputies  onward.  Each  Sunday  we  know  the 
country  parson  whose  preaching  they  experi 
ence,  his  text,  his  subject,  perhaps  the  heads  of 
his  discourse.  At  each  stage  we  know  not  so 
well  the  name  of  the  town  as  that  of  the  cheer 
ful  landlord  with  whom  they  lodge.  Starting 
from  Coolidge's  in  Watertown,  we  have  seen 


312  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

them  bring  up  at  Isaac  Bears's,  in  New  Haven, 
—  the  curt  host  who  dampens  any  self-com 
placency  they  may  incline  to  feel  by  declaring 
the  demonstration  in  their  honor  to  be  nothing 
but  a  Tory  device  to  head  off  the  raising  of  a 
liberty-pole.  Thence  on  to  Curtiss's,  to  Quin- 
tard's,  to  Fitch's,  Haviland's,  Cock's,  and 
Day's,  until  at  length  they  drive  up  before 
Hull's,  "  The  Bunch  of  Grapes,"  in  New  York. 
Here  they  rest  for  several  days,  seeing  the  town 
under  the  guidance  of  McDougall,  afterwards 
major-general,  and  meeting  John  Morin  Scott, 
John  Jay,  Duane,  and  members  of  the  great 
Livingston  family,  as  they  had  met  in  Con 
necticut  Silas  Deane  and  Roger  Sherman. 

On  the  27th  they  reached  Princeton,  where, 
attending  the  college  prayers,  they  find  the 
Scotch  president,  Dr.  Witherspoon,  "  as  high  a' 
son  of  liberty  as  any  man  in  America."  They 
cross  the  Delaware 'at  Trenton,  a  pleasant  sum 
mer  transit.  The  men  of  Glover's  amphibious 
regiment  who  are  to  struggle  with  ice  cakes 
here  in  a  year  or  two  are  still  quietly  fishing  off 
Marblehead,  and  the  Hessians  of  Colonel  Rahl 
are  still  free  and  happy  farmers  in  the  pretty 
villages  about  Marburg  and  Cassel.  In  Phila 
delphia  presently  after,  "  dirty  and  fatigued," 
they  take  lodgings,  the  four  Massachusetts  del 
egates  together,  "  with  Miss  Jane  Port  in  Arch 
Street." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

LEXINGTON. 

ON  September  5,  the  delegates,  fifty-three  in 
number,  met  at  the  city  tavern,  then  viewed 
the  famous  hall  built  for  the  Society  of  House 
Carpenters,  and  concluded  it  was  sufficient  for 
their  purpose.  Peyton  Randolph  of  Virginia 
was  made  chairman,  and  Charles  Thomson 
secretary.  The  Massachusetts  delegates  had 
adopted  the  policy  of  keeping  in  the  back 
ground,  influenced  greatly,  no  doubt,  by  an  in 
cident  that  happened  as  they  were  on  the  point 
of  entering  Philadelphia,  and  which  Jo'hn  Ad 
ams  thus  detailed  in  his  old  age  :  — 

"  We  were  met  at  Frankfort  by  Dr.  Rush,  Mr. 
Mifflin,  Mr.  Bayard,  and  several  other  of  the  most 
active  sons  of  liberty  in  Philadelphia,  who  desired  a 
conference  with  us.  We  invited  them  to  take  tea 
with  us  in  a  private  apartment.  They  asked  leave 
to  give  us  some  information  and  advice,  which  we 
thankfully  granted.  They  represented  to  us  that  the 
friends  of  government  in  Boston  and  in  the  Eastern 
states  had  represented  us  to  the  Middle  and  South 


314  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

as  four  desperate  adventurers.  '  Mr.  Gushing  was  a 
harmless  kind  of  man,  but  poor,  and  wholly  depend 
ent  upon  his  popularity  for  his  subsistence.  Mr. 
Samuel  Adams  was  a  very  artful,  designing  man,  but 
desperately  poor,  and  wholly  dependent  on  his  pop 
ularity  with  the  lowest  vulgar  for  his  living.  John 
Adams  and  Mr.  Paine  were  two  young  lawyers,  of 
no  great  talents,  reputation,  or  weight,  who  had  no 
other  means  of  raising  themselves  into  consequence 
than  by  courting  popularity.'  We  were  all  suspected 
of  wishing  independence.  Now,  said  they,  you  must 
not  utter  the  word  independence,  nor  give  the  least 
hint  or  insinuation  of  the  idea,  either  in  Congress,  or 
any  private  conversation ;  if  you  do,  you  are  undone ; 
for  independence  is  as  unpopular  in  all  the  Middle 
and  South  as  the  Stamp  Act  itself.  No  man  dares 
to  speak  of  it.  ...  You  are  thought  to  be  too  warm. 
You  must  not  come  forward  with  any  bold  measure  ; 
you  must  not  pretend  to  take  the  lead.  You  know 
Virginia  is  the  most  popular  state  in  the  Union  — 
very  proud — they  think  they  have  a  right  to  lead. 
The  South  and  Middle  are  too  much  disposed  to  yield 
it.  ...  This  was  plain  dealing,  but  it  made  a  deep 
impression.  That  conversation  has  given  a  coloring 
to  the  whole  policy  of  the  United  States  from  that  day 
to  this  (1822)." 

As  the  presidency  of  Congress  was  given  to 
Virginia,  so  the  first  memorable  event  of  the 
session  was  an  impassioned  speech  by  Patrick 
Henry,  reciting  the  colonial  wrongs,  the  ne- 


LEXINGTON.  315 

cessity  of  union,  and  of  the  preservation  of  the 
democratic  part  of  the  constitution.  Applause 
was  general,  and  a  debate  followed,  in  which  for 
the  most  part  only  the  Southern  members  ap 
peared,  though  John  Jay  took  part.  Samuel 
Adams  was  without  doubt  the  most  conspicu 
ous  and  also  the  most  dreaded  member  of  the 
body.  All  knew  that  he  had  been  especially 
singled  out  as  the  mark  of  royal  vengeance ; 
with  the  leading  men  he  had  long  been  in  cor 
respondence  ;  his  leadership  in  the  most  popu 
lous  colony,  which  had  so  far  borne  the  brunt 
of  the  struggle,  was  a  familiar  fact,  as  was  also 
his  authorship  of  the  documents  and  measures 
which  had  done  most  to  bring  about  a  crisis. 
His  views  were  generally  felt  to  be  quite  too 
extreme. 

His  first  move  was  one  of  the  most  long 
headed  proceedings  of  his  whole  career,  —  a 
wily  master-stroke  even  for  him.  In  the  dif 
ferences  of  religious  belief,  so  many  of  the 
members  holding  to  their  views  with  ardent  in 
tolerance,  it  was  felt  by  many  to  be  quite  inex 
pedient  to  open  the  Congress  formally,  after 
the  preliminaries  were  arranged,  with  prayer. 
Samuel  Adams,  however,  sternest  of  the  Puri 
tans,  and  well  known  to  hate  everything  that 
had  to  do  with  prelacy  ten  times  more  because 
a  large  proportion  of  the  Episcopalians  in  the 


316  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

colonies  held  the  popular  cause  in  contempt, 
electrified  friend  and  foe  by  moving  that  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Duche,  an  Episcopal  clergyman, 
should  be  asked  to  open  their  deliberations 
with  a  religious  service.  Few  acts  in  his  ca 
reer,  probably,  cost  him  a  greater  sacrifice,  and 
few  acts  were  really  more  effective.  A  rumor 
came  at  the  moment  that  Boston  had  been 
bombarded.  In  the  excitement  that  prevailed 
Mr.  Duch£  performed  the  service  impressively, 
although  his  conduct  afterward  proved  him  to 
be  a  wretched  character.1  "  Joseph  Read,  the 
leading  lawyer  of  Philadelphia,"  says  John 
Adams,  "  returned  with  us  to  our  lodgings. 
He  says  we  never  were  guilty  of  a  more  mas 
terly  stroke  of  policy  than  in  moving  that  Mr. 
Duch£  might  read  prayers.  It  has  had  a  very 
good  effect."  If  Prynne  in  the  Long  Parlia 
ment  had  asked  for  the  prayers  of  Laud,  the 
sensation  could  not  have  been  greater.  Before 
such  a  stretch  of  catholicity,  the  members  be 
came  ashamed  of  their  divisions,  and  a  spirit  of 
harmony,  quite  new  and  beyond  measure  sal 
utary,  came  to  prevail. 

Immediately  afterward  a  committee  was 
formed,  the  description  of  whose  duties  recalls 
the  language  used  by  the  Boston  town-meeting 
in  1772,  when  the  Committee  of  Correspond- 

1  Graydon's  Memoirs,  p.  98,  note. 


LEXINGTON.  317 

ence  was  formed.  The  committee  was  "  to 
state  the  rights  of  the  colonies  in  general,  the 
several  instances  in  which  those  rights  are  vio 
lated  and  infringed,  and  the  means  most  proper 
to  be  pursued  for  obtaining  a  restoration  of 
them."  The  committee  was  to  consist  of  two 
delegates  from  each  province,  Samuel  and  John 
Adams  acting  for  Massachusetts.  Another 
committee  was  also  appointed  to  examine  and 
report  the  several  statutes  which  affected  trade 
and  manufactures. 

Meantime  the  plans  concerted  between  Sam 
uel  Adams  on  the  one  hand,  and  Warren  with 
the  home-keeping  patriots  on  the  other,  were 
carried  to  fulfillment.  Warren  engineered  the 
famous  "  Suffolk  Resolves,"  that  "  no  obedience 
was  due  to  either  or  any  part  of  the  recent  acts 
of  Parliament,  which  are  rejected  as  the  at 
tempts  of  a  wicked  administration  to  enslave 
America."  The  determination  was  expressed  to 
remain  on  the  defensive  so  long  as  such  conduct 
might  be  vindicated  by  the  principles  of  reason 
and  self-preservation,  but  no  longer,  and  to 
seize  as  hostages  the  servants  of  the  crown  as 
an  offset  to  the  apprehension  of  any  persons  in 
Suffolk  County  who  had  rendered  themselves 
conspicuous  in  the  defense  of  violated  liberty. 
A  Provincial  Congress  was  recommended,  and 
all  tax-collectors  were  exhorted  to  retain  moneys 


318  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

in  their  hands  until  government  should  be  con 
stitutionally  organized.  So  far  there  had  been 
no  utterance  quite  so  bold  as  this,  and  Warren 
at  once  committed  his  resolves  to  the  faithful 
saddlebags  of  prompt  Paul  Revere,  who  con 
veyed  them  in  six  days  to  the  banks  of  the 
Schuylkill.  The  hosts  now  faced  each  other 
with  weapons  drawn,  and  any  day  might  see 
an  encounter. 

Samuel  Adams  was  believed  by  the  moderate 
men  and  the  Tories  to  manage  things  both  in 
and  out  of  Congress. 

"While  the  two  parties  in  Congress  remained  thus 
during  three  weeks  on  an  equal  balance,  the  republi 
cans  were  calling  to  their  assistance  the  aid  of  their 
factions  without.  Continued  expresses  were  employed 
between  Philadelphia  and  Boston.  These  were  under 
the  management  of  Samuel  Adams,  —  a  man  who, 
though  by  no  means  remarkable  for  brilliant  abilities, 
yet  is  equal  to  most  men  in  popular  intrigue  and  the 
management  of  a  faction.  He  eats  little,  drinks  little, 
sleeps  little,  thinks  much,  and  is  most  decisive  and  in 
defatigable  in  the  pursuit  of  his  objects.  It  was  this 
man,  who,  by  his  superior  application,  managed  at 
once  the  faction  in  Congress  at  Philadelphia  and  the 
factions  in  New  England.  Whatever  these  patriots 
in  Congress  wished  to  have  done  by  their  colleagues 
without,  to  induce  General  Gage,  then  at  the  head  of 
his  majesty's  army  at  Boston,  to  give  them  a  pretext 
for  violent  opposition,  or  to  promote  their  measures 


LEXINGTON.  319 

in  Congress,  Mr.  Adams  advised  and  directed  to  be 
done ;  and  when  done,  it  was  dispatched  by  express 
to  Congress.  By  one  of  these  expresses  came  the 
inflammatory  resolves  of  the  county  of  Suffolk,  which 
contained  a  complete  declaration  of  war  against  Great 
Britain."  1 

Galloway,  the  writer  quoted,  an  able  lawyer, 
who  had  just  before  been  Speaker  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  Assembly,  was  a  leader  in  Congress  of 
the  strong  party  who  desired  conciliation.  The 
plan  proposed  by  him,  and  which  came  within 
one  vote  of  being  accepted,  was  a  union  of  the 
colonies  under  a  general  Council,  which,  in  con 
junction  with  the  British  Parliament,  was  to 
care  for  America.  Galloway  confesses  to  have 
been  fairly  frightened  out  of  his  purpose  by 
what  he  supposed  to  be  the  power  of  Samuel 
Adams. 

The  Declaration  of  Rights,  embodying  a  non- 
consumption  and  non-importation  of  British 
goods  ;  the  addresses  to  the  king,  to  the  peo 
ple  of  England,  of  Canada,  and  of  the  British 
American  colonies,  and  a  letter  to  the  agent  of 
the  colonies  in  England,  comprise  the  published 
papers  of  the  first  Congress,  seven  weeks  pass 
ing  while  they  were  in  preparation.  Of  these 

1  Historical  and  Political  Reflections  on  the  Rise  and  Progress 
of  the  American  Revolution,  by  Joseph  Galloway.  London, 
1780.  Page  67. 


320  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

the  first  and  most  important  is  substantially 
the  same  as  that  adopted  by  the  people  of 
Boston  in  1772.  What  part  precisely  Samuel 
Adams  took,  we  cannot  tell.  He  himself  says 
nothing,  and  there  was  no  formal  report.  John 
Adams's  pictures  are  as  vivid  as  possible,  but 
the  value  of  his  evidence  is  impaired  by  his  ev 
ident  prejudice  and  sense  of  self-importance. 
Bits  of  testimony,  such  as  that  just  quoted  from 
Galloway,  throw  some  further  light.  Gordon 
states : — 

"  In  some  stage  of  their  proceedings  the  danger 
of  a  rupture  with  Britain  was  urged  as  a  plea  for 
certain  concessions.  Upon  this  Mr.  S.  Adams  rose 
up,  and,  among  other  things,  said  in  substance  :  '  I 
should  advise  persisting  in  our  struggle  for  liberty, 
though  it  was  revealed  from  heaven  that  nine  hun 
dred  and  ninety-nine  were  to  perish,  and  only  one  of 
a  thousand  to  survive  and  retain  his  liberty.  One 
such  freeman  must  possess  more  virtue  and  enjoy 
more  happiness  than  a  thousand  slaves ;  and  let  him 
propagate  his  like,  and  transmit  to  them  what  he  hath 
so  nobly  preserved.'  ' 

All  his  tact  and  all  his  force  were  brought 
into  the  fullest  play,  and  we  can  be  certain  that 
his  influence  was  great.  He  writes  to  Warren, 
September  25,  indicating  that  the  disposition  to 
regard  Massachusetts  as  over-rash  is  somewhat 
overcome,  but  that  great  caution  must  be  used 


LEXINGTON.  321 

on  account  of  a  pervading  fear  that  independ 
ence  is  aimed  at,  and  a  subsequent  subjugation 
of  America  by  the  power  of  New  England.  If 
the  first  Congress  was  not  won  to  thoughts 
of  independence,  it  was  kept,  at  any  rate, 
from  measures  disastrously  reactionary.  When 
Congress  adjourned,  October  26,  appointing  a 
second  convention  for  May  20,  1775,  Samuel 
Adams  had  reason  to  feel  that  the  course  of 
things  had  been  not  unsatisfactory. 

The  two  Adamses  and  Gushing  were  received, 
upon  their  arrival  in  Boston,  November  9,  with 
public  demonstrations.  Letters  are  extant  from 
the  patriots  who  had  remained  behind  in  Bos 
ton,  addressed  to  Samuel  Adams,  while  at  Phil 
adelphia,  full  of  regard  and  a  reverence  almost 
filial,  showing  in  every  line  how  his  wisdom 
was  deferred  to.  The  uneducated  people,  in 
deed,  are  said  to  have  become  superstitious  with 
regard  to  him,  believing  that  he  had  a  pro 
phetic  power,  and  had  in  his  keeping  war  and 
peace.  As  usual,  there  was  no  respite  for  him. 
Gordon  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  the 
presence  of  Samuel  Adams  in  the  Provincial 
Congress,  which  had  come  into  being,  caused 
it  to  push  preparations  for  war,  and  that,  since 
many  members  were  timid,  and  excused  them 
selves  from  attendance  under  plea  of  sickness, 
at  his  instance  measures  were  taken  to  keep 
21 


322  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

them  at  their  work.  He  was  like  a  stout  ser 
geant,  who  makes  it  his  duty  not  only  to  face 
the  foe,  but  sometimes  to  pass  along  the  rear 
of  the  line  of  battle,  with  an  admonitory  prick 
of  the  bayonet  for  the  timid  ones  who  may  be 
disposed  to  run  before  the  enemy's  fire.  As  a 
body,  however,  the  Provincial  Congress  was 
brave  and  united,  and  included  the  best  men 
in  Massachusetts. 

To  the  second  Continental  Congress  the  in 
terval  is  short,  but  the  factotum  crowds  it  with 
work.  He  leads  the  Provincial  Congress  in 
measures  for  making  the  people  aware  of  the 
imminence  of  their  danger ;  he  is  at  the  head 
of  the  town's  committee  to  distribute  donations 
from  abroad ;  he  reaches  out  on  the  one  hand 
to  Canada,  on  the  other  to  the  Mohawk  and 
Stockbridge  Indians,  in  efforts  to  induce  them 
to  march  to  the  patriotic  music ;  but  his  most 
remarkable  manifestation  is  in  connection  with 
the  fifth  celebration  of  the  Boston  Massacre,  on 
the  6th  of  March,  the  5th  being  Sunday.  The 
truth  was,  that  since  the  change  in  the  charter 
in  the  preceding  year  no  town-meeting  could 
be  legally  held  save  such  as  the  governor  ex 
pressly  called.  The  well-trained  "  Bostoneers," 
however,  had  a  ruse  ready,  over  which  the  dazed 
Gage  stroked  his  chin,  without  being  able  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  interfere.  The  clause 


LEXINGTON.  323 

of  the  Government  Act  was  clear  as  to  the 
prohibition  of  town-meetings.  The  preceding 
August,  Gage,  disposed  as  usual  to  be  good- 
natured,  had  summoned  the  selectmen  to  the 
Province  House.  "  If  a  meeting  were  wanted 
he  would  allow  one  to  be  called,  if  he  should 
judge  it  expedient."  The  fathers  of  the  town 
told  him  they  had  no  occasion  for  calling  a 
meeting;  they  had  one  alive.  Gage  looked 
serious :  "  I  must  think  of  that ;  by  thus  doing 
you  can  keep  the  meeting  alive  for  ten  years." 
Foreseeing  the  storm,  indeed,  the  May  meeting 
of  1774  had  not  "dissolved,"  but  "  adjourned." 
So,  too,  had  the  Port  Bill  meeting  of  June  17. 
During  the  remainder  of  the  year,  therefore, 
and  into  the  year  following,  as  one  turns  over 
the  pages  of  the  town  records,  the  "  adjourned  " 
May  meeting,  or  the  "  adjourned  "  Port  Bill 
meeting,  are  reported,  which  serve  perfectly 
every  purpose,  the  town  comfortably  riding  out 
the  storm  by  the  parliamentary  technicality. 
The  meeting  of  the  6th  of  March  was  an  ad 
journment  of  the  Port  Bill  meeting.  Warren, 
knowing  that  the  orator  would  be  in  danger, 
with  characteristic  bravery  solicited  the  post  for 
himself. 

Generally  it  is  as  the  manager,  somewhat 
withdrawn  behind  the  figures  in  the  fore 
ground,  that  Samuel  Adams  makes  himself 


324  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

felt.  In  1770,  at  the  driving  out  of  the  regi 
ments,  he  is  not  chairman  of  the  town's  commit 
tee  that  waits  upon  Hutchinson,  but  stands  be 
hind  Hancock,  only  coming  forward  at  the 
moment  of  danger.  At  the  destruction  of  the 
tea,  he  is  not  in  the  company,  but  his  sentence 
from  the  chair  was  evidently  the  concerted 
signal  for  which  all  were  waiting.  Again,  at 
the  last  great  town-meeting  before  Lexington 
and  Concord,  March  6,  1775,  the  fifth  cele 
bration  of  the  Boston  Massacre,  while  Warren 
is  the  heroic  central  figure,  Samuel  Adams  is 
behind  all  as  chief  director.  On  that  day  Gage 
had  in  the  town  eleven  regiments.  Of  trained 
soldiers  there  were  scarcely  fewer  than  the 
number,  of  men  on  the  patriot  side  ;  and  when 
we  remember  that  many  Tories  throughout  the 
Province,  in  the  disturbed  times,  had  sought 
refuge  in  Boston,  under  the  protection  of  the 
troops,  we  can  feel  what  a  host  there  was  that 
day  on  the  side  of  the  king.  Nevertheless,  all 
went  forward  as  usual.  The  warrant  appeared 
in  due  form  for  the  meeting,  at  which  an  ora 
tion  was  to  be  delivered  to  commemorate  the 
"horrid  Massacre,"  and  to  denounce  the  "ruin 
ous  tendency  of  standing  armies  being  placed 
in  free  and  populous  cities  in  time  of  peace." 
The  Old  South  was  densely  thronged,  and  in 
the  pulpit  as  moderator  once  more,  by  the  side 


LEXINGTON.  325 

of  the  town  clerk,  William  Cooper,  quietly  sat 
Samuel  Adams.  Among  the  citizens  a  large 
party  of  officers  were  present,  apparently  in 
tent  upon  making  a  disturbance  with  the  de 
sign  of  precipitating  a  conflict.  The  war,  it 
was  thought,  might  as  well  begin  then  as  at 
any  time.  Warren  was  late  in  appearing ; 
Samuel  Adams  sat  meantime  as  if  upon  a 
powder-barrel  that  might  at  any  minute  roar 
into  the  air  in  a  sudden  explosion.  The  tradi 
tion  has  come  down  that  he  was  serene  and  un 
moved.  He  quietly  requested  the  townsmen  to 
vacate  the  front  seats,  into  which,  in  order  that 
they  might  be  well  placed  to  hear,  he  politely 
invited  the  soldiers,  whose  numbers  were  so 
large  that  they  overflowed  the  pews  and  sat 
upon  the  pulpit  stairs.  Warren  came  at  last, 
entering  through  the  window  behind  the  pulpit 
to  avoid  the  press.  Wells  gives,  from  a  con 
temporary,  the  following  report :  — 

"  The  Selectmen,  with  Adams,  Church,  and  Han 
cock,  Cooper,  and  others,  assembled  in  the  pulpit, 
which  was  covered  with  black,  and  we  all  sat  gaping 
at  one  another  above  an  hour,  expecting!  At  last  a 
single  horse  chair  stopped  at  the  apothecary's,  opposite 
the  meeting,  from  which  descended  the  orator  (War 
ren)  of  the  day ;  and  entering  the  shop,  was  followed 
by  a  servant  with  a  bundle,  in  which  were  the  Cicero 
nian  toga,  etc. 


326  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  Having  robed  himself,  he  proceeded  across  the 
street  to  the  meeting,  and  being  received  into  the 
pulpit,  he  was  announced  by  one  of  his  fraternity  to 
be  the  person  appointed  to  declaim  on  the  occasion. 
He  then  put  himself  into  a  Demosthenian  posture, 
with  a  white  handkerchief  in  his  right  hand,  and  his 
left  in  his  breeches,  —  began  and  ended  without  ac 
tion.  He  was  applauded  by  the  mob,  but  groaned  at 
by  people  of  understanding.  One  of  the  pulpiteers 
(Adams)  then  got  up  and  proposed  the  nomination  of 
another  to  speak  next  year  on  the  bloody  Massacre, 
—  the  first  time  that  expression  was  made  to  the  au 
dience,  —  when  some  officers  cried,  '  O  fie,  fie ! '  The 
gallerians,  apprehending  fire,  bounded  out  of  the  win 
dows,  and  swarmed  down  the  gutters,  like  rats,  into 
the  street.  The  Forty-third  Regiment  returning  ac 
cidentally  from  exercise,  with  drums  beating,  threw 
the  whole  body  into  the  greatest  consternation.  There 
were  neither  pageantry,  exhibitions,  processions,  or 
bells  tolling  as  usual,  but  the  night  was  remarked  for 
being  the  quietest  these  many  months  past." 

A  picturesque  incident  in  the  delivery  of  the 
oration  was  that,  as  Warren  proceeded,  a  Brit 
ish  captain,  sitting  on  the  pulpit  stairs,  held  up 
in  his  open  palm  before  Warren's  face  a  num 
ber  of  pistol  bullets.  Warren  quietly  dropped 
his  handkerchief  upon  them  and  went  on.  It 
was  strange  enough  that  that  oration  was  given 
without  an  outbreak. 

"  We  wildly  stare  about/'  he  says,  "  and  with  amaze- 


LEXINGTON.  327 

ment  ask,  '  Who  spread  this  ruin  around  us  ? '  What 
wretch  has  dared  deface  the  image  of  his  God  ?  Has 
haughty  France  or  cruel  Spain  sent  forth  her  myrmi 
dons  ?  Has  the  grim  savage  rushed  again  from  the 
far  distant  wilderness  ?  Or  does  some  fiend,  fierce 
from  the  depth  of  Hell,  with  all  the  rancorous  malice 
which  the  apostate  damned  can  feel,  twang  her  de 
structive  bow  and  hurl  her  deadly  arrows  at  our 
breast  ?  No,  none  of  these  ;  but  how  astonishing ! 
It  is  the  hand  of  Britain  that  inflicts  the  wound. 
The  arms  of  George,  our  rightful  king,  have  been 
employed  to  shed  that  blood  which  freely  should 
have  flowed  at  his  command,  when  justice,  or  the  honor 
of  his  crown,  had  called  his  subjects  to  the  field." l 

The  oration  was  given  without  disturbance, 
though  the  tension  was  tremendous.  In  the 
proceedings  that  followed  the  quiet  was  not 
perfect,  but  the  collision  was  averted  for  a  time. 
The  troops  were  not  quite  ready,  and  on  the 
patriot  side  the  presiding  genius  was  as  prudent 
as  he  was  bold.2  Shortly  afterward  Samuel 

1  Frothingham's  Warren,  p.  433. 

2  Hutchinson  gives  an  interesting  fact  respecting  this  mem 
orable  town-meeting,  in  his  Diary.    "  September  6,  1775.    Col. 
James  tells  an  odd  story  of  the  intention  of  the  officers  the 
5  March ;  that  300  were  in  the  meeting  to  hear  Dr.  Warren's 
oration  :  that  if  he  had  said  anything  against  the  King,  &c., 
an  officer  was  prepared,  who  stood  near,  with  an  egg  to  have 
thrown  in  his  face,  and  that  was  to  have  been  a  signal  to  draw 
swords,  and  they  would  have  massacred  Hancock,  Adams,  and 
hundreds  more  ;  and  he  added  he  wished  they  had.   I  am  glad 


328  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Adams  sent  the  following  quiet  account  to 
Richard  Henry  Lee  in  Virginia,  which  is  taken 
here  from  the  autograph :  — 

BOSTON,  March,  1775. 

On  the  sixth  Instant,  there  was  an  Adjournment  of 
our  Town-meeting,  when  an  Oration  was  delivered  in 
Commemoration  of  the  Massacre  on  the  5th  of  March, 
1770.  I  had  long  expected  they  would  take  that  oc 
casion  to  beat  up  a  Breeze,  and  therefore  (having  the 
Honor  of  being  the  Moderator  of  the  Meeting,  and 
seeing  Many  of  the  Officers  present  before  the  orator 
came  in)  I  took  care  to  have  them  treated  with  Ci 
vility,  inviting  them  into  convenient  Seats,  &c.,  that 
they  might  have  no  pretence  to  behave  ill,  for  it  is  a 
good  maxim  in  Politicks  as  well  as  War,  to  put  and 
keep  the  enemy  in  the  wrong.  They  behaved  tol 
erably  well  till  the  oration  was  finished,  when  upon  a 
motion  made  for  the  appointment  of  another  orator, 
they  began  to  hiss,  which  irritated  the  assembly  to 
the  greatest  Degree,  and  Confusion  ensued.  They, 
however,  did  not  gain  their  End,  which  was  appar- 

they  did  not :  for  I  think  it  would  have  been  an  everlasting 
disgrace  to  attack  a  body  of  people  without  arms  to  defend 
themselves. 

"  He  says  one  officer  cried  '  Fy  !  Fy  ! '  and  Adams  immedi 
ately  asked  who  dared  say  so  ?  And  then  said  to  the  officer 
he  should  mark  him.  The  officer  answered,  '  And  I  will  mark 
yon.  I  live  at  such  a  place,  and  shall  be  ready  to  meet  you.' 
Adams  said  he  would  go  to  his  General.  The  officer  said  his 
General  had  nothing  to  do  with  it ;  the  affair  was  between 
them  two."  —  Diary  and  Letters,  pp,  528,  529. 


LEXINGTON.  329 

ently  to  break  up  the  Meeting,  for  order  was  soon 
restored,  and  we  proceeded  regularly  and  finished.  I 
am  persuaded  that  were  it  not  for  the  Danger  of  pre 
cipitating  a  Crisis,  not  a  Man  of  them  would  have 
been  spared.  It  was  provoking  enough  to  them,  that 
while  there  were  so  many  Troops  stationed  here  for 
the  design  of  suppressing  Town-meetings,  there 
should  yet  be  a  Meeting  for  the  purpose  of  deliver 
ing  an  oration  to  commemorate  a  massacre  perpe 
trated  by  soldiers,  and  to  show  the  danger  of  stand 
ing  armies. 

And  now  Gage  was  preparing  for  the  expe 
dition  to  secure  the  stores  at  Concord,  and 
make  the  oft-threatened  seizure  of  Hancock 
and  Adams.  However  the  general  may  have 
vapored  shortly  before  in  England,  he  had 
shown  since  his  arrival  in  Boston  a  judicious 
hesitation  as  to  precipitating  hostilities,  which 
he  saw  well  must  at  once  follow  the  arrest  of 
the  important  men.  Reinforcements,  however, 
were  now  on  the  way ;  he  had  been  urged  for 
ward  by  letters  from  England,  and  he  made 
ready  for  the  attempt.  Several  months  before 
this  time,  in  the  Provincial  Congress,  Samuel 
Adams  had  called  attention  to  the  danger  of 
allowing  expeditions  of  regulars  into  the  inte 
rior,  and  had  recommended  opposition  if  they 
should  proceed  more  than  ten  miles  from  Bos 
ton.  From  this  suggestion  it  may  have  come 


330  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

about  that  the  militia  everywhere  were  so  on 
the  alert,  and  that  on  the  evening  of  the  18th, 
when  the  news  spread  that  the  regulars  were 
coming  out,  Jonas  Parker's  company  paraded 
so  promptly  on  Lexington  Green.  That  night, 
in  the  house  of  the  Rev.  Jonas  Clark,  which 
still  stands  a  few  rods  from  the  Common,  lodged 
Samuel  Adams  and  John  Hancock,  about  to 
start  upon  their  journey  southward.  Rumors 
of  the  coming  of  the  troops  had  reached  the 
village  through  several  channels,  and  when  an 
hour  after  midnight  Parker's  men  loaded  with 
powder  and  ball,  Hancock  and  Adams,  stepping 
over  from  the  minister's,  looked  on.  Shortly 
before,  the  centaur,  Paul  Revere,  having  es 
caped  from  the  clutches  of  the  British,  had 
galloped  up,  and  found  all  asleep.  The  ser 
geant,  who  with  eight  men  was  stationed  at  the 
house,  roused  by  the  courier's  urgency,  stated 
that  the  family  did  not  wish  to  be  disturbed 
by  any  noise.  "  Noise,"  cried  Paul  Revere, 
"  you  '11  have  noise  enough  before  long.  The 
regulars  are  coming  out."  On  came  the  light 
infantry,  moving  swiftly  in  the  fresh  night  air. 
In  a  moment  more  occurred  the  incident  of 
Major  Pitcairn's  order  and  pistol  shot ;  then 
while  the  smoke  cleared  after  the  memorable 
volley,  Adams  and  Hancock  were  making  their 
way  across  the  fields  to  Woburn.  For  Adams 


LEXINGTON.  331 

it  was  an  hour  of  triumph.  The  British  had 
fired  first ;  the  Americans  had  "  put  the  enemy 
in  the  wrong ;  "  the  two  sides  were  committed ; 
conciliation  was  no  longer  possible.  As  the  sun 
rose  there  came  from  him  one  of  the  few  exult 
ant  outbursts  of  his  life :  "  What  a  glorious 
morning  is  this  !  "  They  waited  in  the  second 
precinct  of  Woburn,  now  Burlington,  while  the 
minute-men,  through  the  forenoon,  hurried  by 
with  their  arms.  At  noon  a  man  broke  in 
upon  them,  at  the  house  of  the  minister,  with 
a  shriek,  and  for  a  moment  they  thought  them 
selves  lost.  They  were  then  piloted  along  a 
cart-way  to  a  corner  of  Billerica,  where  they 
were  glad  to  dine  off  cold  salt  pork  and  pota 
toes  served  in  a  wooden  tray.  A  day  or  two 
later  they  set  out  for  Philadelphia. 

A  spirited,  manly  letter  is  extant,  written  by 
John  Hancock,  at  Worcester,  to  the  Committee 
of  Safety.  We  have  already  had  occasion  to 
notice  his  weakness  ;  his  conduct  hereafter  will 
show  still  greater  shortcomings.  One  is  glad 
to  view  him  at  his  best ;  for  at  his  best  he  was 
a  generous  and  able  man. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

HARTFORD  was  reached  on  the  29th  by  the 
two  delegates,  where,  in  a  secret  meeting  with 
Governor  Trumbull  and  others,  they  heard  the 
plan  arranged  for  the  surprise  of  Ticonderoga. 
Gushing,  John  Adams,  and  Paine  joined  them, 
and  soon  afterward,  in  company  with  the  Con 
necticut  delegation,  the  Massachusetts  deputies 
entered  New  York  with  great  ceremony.  With 
their  number  increased  to  fourteen  by  the  ad 
dition  of  the  New  York  delegates,  they  crossed 
the  Hudson,  escorted  by  five  hundred  gentle 
men  and  two  hundred  militia.  Through  New 
Jersey  the  honors  continued,  and  at  Philadel 
phia  the  climax  was  reached.  Says  Curwen's 
"  Journal :  "  — 

u  Early  in  the  morning  a  great  number  of  persons 
rode  out  several  miles,  hearing  that  the  Eastern  del 
egates  were  approaching,  when,  about  eleven  o'clock, 
the  cavalcade  appeared  (I  being  near  the  upper  end 
of  Fore  Street)  ;  first,  two  or  three  hundred  gentle 
men  on  horseback,  preceded,  however,  by  the  newly 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.     333 

chosen  city  military  officers,  two  and  two,  with  drawn 
swords,  followed  by  John  Hancock  and  Samuel  Ad 
ams  in  a  phaeton  and  pair,  the  former  looking  as  if 
his  journey  and  high  living,  or  solicitude  to  support 
the  dignity  of  the  first  man  in  Massachusetts,  had  im 
paired  his  health.  Next  came  John  Adams  and 
Thomas  Gushing  in  a  single-horse  chaise  :  behind  fol 
lowed  Robert  Treat  Paine,  and  after  him  the  New 
York  delegation  and  some  from  the  Province  of  Con 
necticut,  etc.,  etc.  The  rear  was  brought  up  by  a 
hundred  carriages,  the  streets  crowded  with  people  of 
all  ages,  sexes,  and  ranks.  The  procession  marched 
with  a  slow,  solemn  pace.  On  its  entrance  into  the 
city,  all  the  bells  were  set  to  ringing  and  chiming,  and 
every  mark  of  respect  that  could  be  was  expressed ; 
not  much,  I  presume,  to  the  secret  liking  of  their  fel 
low  delegates  from  the  other  colonies,  who  doubtless 
had  to  digest  the  distinction  as  easily  as  they  could." 

The  events  of  the  19th  of  April  had  widened 
the  breach  greatly  ;  nevertheless,  when  Samuel 
Adams,  now  more  than  ever  looking  forward  to 
nothing  less  than  independence,  stood  among 
his  fellow  members  in  the  second  Continental 
Congress,  he  found  himself  still  alone.  Even 
John  Adams  and  Jefferson  were  as  yet  far  from 
being  ready  for  such  a  step,  and  in  the  debates 
the  only  questions  raised  were  between  a  party 
which  was  in  favor  of  resisting  British  encroach 
ments  by  force  of  arms  and  a  party  which  de 
sired  to  make  still  further  appeals  to  king  and 


334  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

Parliament,  both  parties  looking  forward  only 
to  a  restoration  of  the  state  of  things  existing 
before  the  disputes  began.  Among  the  leading 
statesmen  of  America,  independence  was  the 
desire  of  Samuel  Adams  alone.  He  lost  a 
staunch  supporter  just  now  in  the  untimely 
death  of  Josiah  Quincy,  Jr.,  by  consumption, 
which  occurred  on  shipboard  in  April,  on  his 
return  from  England,  whither  he  had  gone  hop 
ing  for  an  improvement  in  health.  Quincy's 
relations  with  Samuel  Adams,  who  was  twenty- 
two  years  older  than  he,  were  almost  those  of  a 
son.  Except  Warren,  no  one  stood  higher  in 
Adams's  esteem,  who  always  referred  to  him 
with  respect  and  tenderness.  Quincy,  in  turn, 
was  devoted.  "  Let  our  friend,  Samuel  Adams, 
be  one  of  the  first  to  whom  you  show  my  let 
ters,"  he  wrote  to  his  wife,  —  and  again,  speak 
ing  of  England :  "  The  character  of  your  Mr. 
Samuel  Adams  stands  very  high  here.  I  find 
many  who  consider  him  the  first  politician  in 
the  world.  I  have  found  more  reason  every 
day  to  convince  me  he  has  been  right  when 
others  supposed  him  wrong." 

His  reputation  as  a  desperate  and  fanatical 
adventurer,  with  nothing  to  lose,  still  followed 
him,  and  his  advocacy  of  a  scheme  was  often  an 
injury  to  it.  Massachusetts,  through  Warren, 
now  beyond  all  men  the  leader  at  home,  sought 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.     335 

to  secure  an  authorization  of  the  Provincial 
Congress,  which  many  in  the  Continental  Con 
gress  hesitated  to  grant,  since  it  would  be  prac 
tically  a  recognition  of  the  independence  of 
Massachusetts.  When  Peyton  Randolph,  how 
ever,  retired  from  the  chair  to  attend  the  session 
of  the  Virginia  Legislature,  the  presidency  was 
given  to  Massachusetts,  in  the  person  of  John 
Hancock,  —  a  measure  for  which  the  two  Ad 
amses  worked  hard,  having  in  view  a  double 
advantage ;  by  putting  the  richest  man  in  New 
England  into  conspicuous  position,  the  idea  was 
dispelled  that  only  needy  adventurers  were  con 
cerned  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  Hancock  him 
self  was  likely  to  be  clamped  firmly  to  the  pop 
ular  cause  by  the  honor  which  was  shown  him. 
By  far  the  most  important  business  trans 
acted  by  the  second  Continental  Congress  was 
the  appointment  of  Washington  as  commander- 
in-chief,  —  a  service  principally  due  to  John 
Adams,  though  the  nomination  was  seconded 
by  Samuel  Adams. 

"  Full  of  anxieties,"  says  John  Adams,  "  concern 
ing  these  confusions,  and  apprehending  daily  that  we 
should  hear  very  distressing  news  from  Boston,  I 
walked  with  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  in  the  State  House 
yard,  for  a  little  exercise  and  fresh  air,  before  the 
hour  of  Congress,  and  there  represented  to  him  the 
various  dangers  that  surrounded  us.  He  agreed  to 


336  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

them  all,  but  said,  *  What  shall  we  do  ?  I  answered 
him  ...  I  was  determined  to  take  a  step  which 
should  compel  all  the  members  of  Congress  to  de 
clare  themselves  for  or  against  something.  I  am 
determined  this  morning  to  make  a  direct  motion 
that  Congress  should  adopt  the  army  before  Boston, 
and  appoint  Colonel  Washington  commander  of  it. 
Mr.  Adams  seemed  to  think  very  seriously  of  it,  but 
said  nothing. 

"  Accordingly,  when  Congress  had  assembled,  I 
rose  in  my  place.  .  .  .  Mr.  Washington,  who  hap 
pened  to  sit  near  the  door,  as  soon  as  he  heard  me 
allude  to  him,  from  his  usual  modesty,  darted  into 
the  library-room.  Mr.  Hancock  heard  me  with  visi 
ble  pleasure,  but  when  I  came  to  describe  Washington 
for  the  commander,  I  never  remarked  a  more  sudden 
and  striking  change  of  countenance.  Mortification 
and  resentment  were  expressed  as  forcibly  as  his  face 
could  exhibit  them.  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  seconded 
the  motion,  and  that  did  not  soften  the  president's 
physiognomy  at  all." 

On  the  12th  of  June  Gage  made  his  proc 
lamation,  offering  pardon  "to  all  persons  who 
shall  forthwith  lay  down  their  Arms  and  return 
to  the  Duties  of  peaceable  Subjects,  excepting 
only  from  the  Benefit  of  such  Pardon  Samuel 
Adams  and  John  Hancock,  whose  Offences 
are  of  too  flagitious  a  Nature  to  admit  of  any 
other  Consideration  than  that  of  condign  Pun 
ishment."  News  of  his  proscription  probably 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.    337 

reached  Samuel  Adams  at  the  same  time  with 
that  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  of  the 
death  of  the  man  whom  he  is  believed  to  have 
loved  beyond  all  others,  Dr.  Warren.  The  fol 
lowing  letter  to  his  wife  is  contained  among  his 
manuscripts :  — 

PHIL.,  June  28th,  1775. 

MY  DEAREST  BETSY,  yesterday  I  received  Letters 
from  some  of  our  Friends  at  the  Camp  informing  me 
of  the  Engagement  between  the  American  Troops  and 
the  Rebel  Army  in  Charlestown.  I  can  not  but  be 
greatly  rejoyced  at  the  tryed  Valor  of  our  Country 
men,  who  by  all  Accounts  behaved  with  an  intrepidity 
becoming  those  who  fought  for  their  Liberties  against 
the  mercenary  Soldiers  of  a  Tyrant.  It  is  painful  to 
me  to  reflect  on  the  Terror  I  must  suppose  you  were 
under  on  hearing  the  Noise  of  War  so  near.  Favor 
me  my  dear  with  an  Account  of  your  Apprehensions 
at  that  time,  under  your  own  hand.  I  pray  God  to 
cover  the  heads  of  our  Countrymen  in  every  day  of 
Battle  and  ever  to  protect  you  from  Injury  in  these 
distracted  times.  The  Death  of  our  truly  amiable 
and  worthy  Friend  Dr.  Warren  is  greatly  afflicting ; 
the  Language  of  Friendship  is,  how  shall  we  resign 
him ;  but  it  is  our  Duty  to  submit  to  the  Dispensations 
of  Heaven  "  whose  ways  are  ever  gracious,  ever  just." 
He  fell  in  the  glorious  Struggle  for  publick  Liberty. 
Mr.  Pitts  and  Dr.  Church  inform  me  that  my  dear 
Son  has  at  length  escaped  from  the  Prison  at  Boston. 
.  .  .  Remember  me  to  my  dear  Hannah  and  sister 
22 


338  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Polly  and  to  all  Friends.  Let  me  know  where  good 
old  Surry  is.  Gage  has  made  me  respectable  by 
naming  me  first  among  those  who  are  to  receive  no 
favor  from  him.  I  thouroughly  despise  him  and  his 
Proclamation.  .  .  .  The  Clock  is  now  striking  twelve. 
I  therefore  wish  you  a  good  Night. 

Yours  most  affectionately, 

S.  ADAMS. 

Wells  has  stated  that  no  letter  of  Samuel 
Adams  can  be  found  in  which  any  reference 
is  made  to  the  death  of  Warren,  overlooking 
that  which  has  just  been  given.  It  is,  per 
haps,  singular  that  Adams  expressed  no  more. 
"  Their  kindred  souls  were  so  closely  twined 
that  both  felt  one  joy,  both  one  affliction,"  said 
the  orator  at  Warren's  re-interment  after  the 
British  evacuation.  That  Samuel  Adams  wore 
him  in  his  heart  of  hearts  all  men  knew,  and 
his  silence  is  part  of  that  reticence  as  to  his 
own  emotions  which  has  been  referred  to  as  so 
constantly  marking  him.  His  relation  to  War 
ren,  who  died  at  thirty-five,  was  similar  to  that 
in  which  he  stood  to  Quincy,  though  somewhat 
more  intimate.  "  The  future  seemed  burdened 
with  his  honors,"  says  Bancroft  of  Warren,  and 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  promise  could  be  finer. 
His  powers  were  becoming  calmed  and  trained, 
while  losing  no  particle  of  their  youthful  force. 
He  was  at  once  prudent  and  yet  most  impetu- 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  339 

ous,  — able  in  debate  in  town-meeting  or  Assem 
bly,  —  prompt  and  intrepid  in  the  field.  Either 
as  statesman  or  as  soldier  he  might  have  been 
his  country's  pride. 

Samuel  Adams  swept  aside  personal  griefs 
and  perils.  He  adopted  Washington  cordially, 
and  poured  out  for  him  whatever  information 
could  be  of  value  to  a  man  of  the  South  about 
to  take  command  of  an  army  of  New  England 
troops.  He  strove  to  prepare  for  him  a  good 
reception  by  sending  beforehand  to  the  impor 
tant  men  the  most  favorable  commendations. 
Less  fortunate  was  the  work  of  the  Adamses  in 
behalf  of  Charles  Lee,  who,  largely  through 
them,  was  appointed  second  in  command,  —  the 
eccentric,  selfish  marplot,  who  so  nearly  wrecked 
the  cause  he  assumed  to  uphold.  On  the  1st  of 
August  the  second  Continental  Congress  ad 
journed  until  the  5th  of  September,  the  Massa 
chusetts  delegation,  on  their  return,  having  in 
care  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the  use 
of  the  army  of  Washington. 

When  Samuel  Adams,  with  his  fellow  dele 
gates,  arrived  from  Philadelphia,  he  found  in 
session  "  The  General  Assembly  of  the  territory 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,"  in  which  he  was  to  sit 
as  one  of  the  eighteen  councilors.  He  was  at 
once  made  Secretary  of  State.  His  son  became 
a  surgeon  in  the  army  of  Washington,  while  his 


840  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

wife  and  daughter  were  inmates  of  the  family 
of  Mrs.  Adams's  father  at  Cambridge.  Leaving 
his  public  functions  in  the  hands  of  a  deputy- 
secretary,  Samuel  Adams  is  in  the  saddle  again 
on  the  12th  of  September,  and,  after  riding 
three  hundred  miles  on  a  horse  lent  him  by 
John  Adams,  with  great  benefit  to  his  health, 
he  is  soon  once  more  at  Philadelphia,  for  the 
opening  of  the  third  Continental  Congress. 

The  jealousy  toward  New  England  was  now 
even  greater  than  ever  before  in  the  proprietary 
and  some  of  the  southern  colonies.  Gadsden, 
R.  H.  Lee,  Patrick  Henry,  and  a  few  others, 
were  ready  for  independence.  As  yet,  however, 
there  was  no  discussion  of  this  matter.  Samuel 
Adams,  impatient,  began  to  entertain  the  idea 
of  establishing  independence  for  the  New  Eng 
land  colonies  by  themselves,  cherishing  the  hope 
that  the  rest  would  follow  in  time. 

The  defection  of  Dr.  Benjamin  Church,  which 
was  discovered  in  the  fall  of  1775,  must  have 
caused  him  pain  scarcely  less  than  the  deaths  of 
Quincy  and  Warren.  Next  to  these,  no  one  of 
the  younger  men  had  promised  more  fairly  than 
Church.  His  abilities  were  brilliant,  his  inter 
est  in  all  the  Whig  projects  apparently  most 
sincere.  He  had  been  implicitly  trusted.  Years 
before,  while  secretly  a  writer  for  the  govern 
ment,  he  had  escaped  discovery.  Now  he  was 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  341 

detected,  while  betraying  to  the  enemy,  by  let 
ters  written  in  cipher,  the  plans  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  patriots.  He  narrowly  escaped  execu 
tion.  He  was  allowed  to  take  passage  for  the 
West  Indies  in  a  ship  which  was  never  heard 
of  more. 

To  relate  particularly  the  doings  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  must  be  left  to  the  general 
historian.  The  reports  are  meagre ;  a  thousand 
details  came  up  for  consideration,  and  Samuel 
Adams  was  busy  in  many  different  ways  which 
it  would  be  wearisome  to  try  to  trace.  Inde 
pendence  was  more  than  ever  at  his  heart,  but 
seemed  as  far  off  as  ever.  John  Adams,  who 
had  reached  his  ground  at  last,  went  home  in 
the  winter  and  remained  two  months ;  Han 
cock,  becoming  estranged  from  his  plain  com 
panions,  affiliated  with  the  aristocratic  members 
from  the  middle  and  southern  colonies ;  both 
Gushing  and  Paine  favored  conciliation.  Jef- 
fersoii  remembered  Samuel  Adams  as  the  chief 
promoter  of  the  invasion  of  Canada.  He  be 
came  warmly  friendly  to  the  brave  Montgomery, 
followed  with  ardent  hope  the  reduction  of  St. 
Johns,  Chambly,  and  Montreal,  and  was  much 
afflicted  when  the  young  conqueror  was  struck 
down  in  the  winter  storm  at  Quebec.  Disaster, 
as  always,  nerved  him  to  new  efforts. 


342  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

The  reader  will  be  interested  in  the  following 
letter  from  his  wife,  copied  from  the  autograph, 
which  the  "  bad  paper  "  and  the  "  pen  made 
with  scissars  "  make  not  easily  decipherable :  — 

CAMBRIDGE  Feb.  12th,  1776. 

MY  DEAR,  I  Received  your  affectinate  Letter  by 
Feseuton  and  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  Concern  for 
My  health  and  Safty.  I  beg  you  Would  not  give 
yourself  any  pain  on  our  being  so  Near  the  Camp; 
the  place  I  am  in  is  so  Situated,  that  if  the  Regulars 
should  ever  take  Prospect  Hill,  which  god  forbid,  I 
should  be  able  to  Make  an  Escape,  as  I  am  Within  a 
few  stone  casts  of  a  Back  Road,  Which  Leads  to  the 
Most  Retired  part  of  Newtown.  ...  I  beg  you  to 
Excuse  the  very  poor  Writing  as  My  paper  is  Bad  and 
my  pen  made  with  Scissars.  I  should  be  glad  (My 
dear),  if  you  should  'nt  come  down  soon,  you  would 
Write  me  Word  Who  to  apply  to  for  some  Monney, 
for  I  am  low  in  Cash  and  Every  thing  is  very  dear. 
May  I  subscribe  myself  yours 

ELIZA'"  ADAMS. 

The  chafing  fanatic  of  independence,  whose 
fire  was  rising  more  and  more,  sent  out  in 
February  an  "  Earnest  Appeal  to  the  People." 
The  opponents  of  independence,  led  now  by  the 
able  Wilson  of  Pennsylvania,  conspicuous  af 
terwards  in  the  debates  on  the  constitution,  and 
as  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  pursued  a  vigorous  course.  Helped  es- 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.    343 

pecially  by  Wyeth  of  Virginia,  Samuel  Adams 
stood  against  them.  His  abilities  were  greater 
in  other  fields  than  on  the  floor  of  debate,  ready 
and  impressive  though  he  was,  and  he  at  this 
time  sadly  missed  the  help  of  John  Adams, 
whose  power  here  was  of  the  highest.  The 
baffled  striver,  borne  down  for  the  time  by  the 
odds  against  him,  gnashed  his  teeth  against  his 
colleagues,  Hancock,  Paine,  and  Gushing,  who 
rendered  him  no  help.  "  Had  I  suggested  an 
idea  of  the  vanity  of  the  ape,  the  tameness  of 
the  ox,  or  the  stupid  servility  of  the  ass,  I 
might  have  been  liable  to  censure  ; "  —  thus  he 
wrote.  Massachusetts  stood  nobly  by  him,  for 
at  the  reelection  of  delegates,  though  Hancock 
was  returned,  like  the  two  Adamses,  by  a  good 
majority,  Paine  was  barely  chosen,  and  Gush 
ing  was  entirely  dropped,  Elbridge  Gerry  of 
Marblehead  taking  his  place,  and  showing  him 
self  at  once  a  capable  combatant  side  by  side 
with  the  veteran. 

But  a  change  was  preparing.  Speaking  of 
the  work  of  Thomas  Paine,  Samuel  Adams 
bore  this  testimony  to  its  value :  "  '  Common 
Sense '  and  '  The  Crisis '  undoubtedly  awakened 
the  public  mind,  and  led  the  people  loudly  to 
call  for  a  declaration  of  independence."  But 
months  were  to  pass  before  the  new  mood 
of  the  people  was  to  make  itself  felt  in  Con- 


344  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

gress.  Adams,  with  the  small  phalanx  of  ad 
vanced  men,  among  whom,  besides  Wyeth, 
were  Ward  of  Rhode  Island,  Chase  of  Mary 
land,  and  Oliver  Wolcott  and  Roger  Sherman 
of  Connecticut,  faced  the  moderate  men.  He 
fought  also  outside,  trying  especially  to  coun 
teract  the  influence  of  the  Quakers,  a  sect 
whose  conduct  in  general  tried  his  patience 
greatly,  and  which  in  convention  just  before 
had  issued  an  address  strongly  urging  unquali 
fied  submission.  Samuel  Adams  handled  with 
out  gloves  the  respectable  broad-brims :  — 

"  *  But,'  say  the  puling,  pusillanimous  cowards,  *  we 
shall  be  subject  to  a  long  and  bloody  war,  if  we  de 
clare  independence.'  On  the  contrary,  I  affirm  it  the 
only  step  that  can  bring  the  contest  to  a  speedy  and 
happy  issue.  By  declaring  independence  we  put  our 
selves  on  a  footing  for  an  equal  negotiation.  Now 
we  are  called  a  pack  of  villainous  rebels,  who,  like  the 
St.  Vincent's  Indians,  can  expect  nothing  more  than 
a  pardon  for  our  lives,  and  the  sovereign  favor,  re 
specting  freedom  and  property,  to  be  at  the  king's 
will.  Grant,  Almighty  God,  that  I  may  be  numbered 
with  the  dead  before  that  sable  day  dawns  on  North 
America." 

Samuel  Adams  undoubtedly  prepared  the 
resolutions  respecting  the  disarming  of  the  To 
ries,  being  chairman  of  the  committee  on  that 
matter.  It  was  more  and  more  the  case  that 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.    345 

his  state  papers  before  the  war*  became  the 
models  for  important  documents,  and  were  used 
directly  to  explain  to  the  public  the  justice  of 
the  American  cause.  John  Adams,  until  within 
a  few  months,  and  Jefferson,  to  the  present  mo 
ment,  had  regarded  independence  with  disfavor, 
only  to  be  accepted  as  a  last  resort.  Franklin 
looked  upon  it  as  an  event,  which,  if  it  must 
come,  was  lamentable.  Washington,  in  the  first 
Congress,  denied  that  the  colonies  desired,  or 
that  it  was  for  their  interest,  "separately  or 
collectively,  to  set  up  for  independence."  Up 
to  the  time  when  he  became  commander-in- 
chief,  he  desired  peace  and  reconciliation  on  an 
honorable  basis.  Joseph  Warren  died  without 
desiring  American  freedom.  Even  after  Lex 
ington  he  favored  reconciliation,  founded  on 
the  maintenance  of  colonial  rights.  "  This," 
said  be,  "  I  most  heartily  wish,  as  I  feel  a  warm 
affection  for  the  parent  state."  Samuel  Adams 
had  a  few  correspondents  of  views  similar  to 
his  own.  Such  were  Joseph  Hawley,  who,  be 
cause  he  was  ill,  or  through  some  unaccounta 
ble  neglect,  was  suffered  to  hide  his  fine  powers 
and  accomplishments  during  all  these  mighty 
years  in  the  seclusion  of  Northampton ;  also  Dr. 
Samuel  Cooper,  and  James  Warren  of  Plym 
outh,  fast  rising  in  Massachusetts  to  take  his 
namesake's  place  in  council,  though  he  never 


346  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

appeared  in  the  field.  To  the  latter  Adams 
writes  in  April :  "  The  child  Independence  is 
now  struggling  for  birth.  I  trust  that  in  a 
short  time  it  will  be  brought  forth,  and,  in  spite 
of  Pharaoh,  all  America  will  hail  the  dignified 
stranger."  The  plain  people,  too,  whom  he 
loved  and  trusted,  rallied  to  him.  At  last,  on 
the  6th  of  April,  while  the  Pennsylvania  As 
sembly,  under  the  lead  of  the  incorrigible  Dick 
inson,  who  was  now  as  energetic  at  the  brake 
as  he  had  once  been  on  the  engine,  was  in 
structing  its  delegates  to  discourage  separation, 
a  measure  was  passed  abolishing  British  cus 
tom-houses  in  the  thirteen  colonies,  and  open 
ing  their  ports  to  the  commerce  of  the  world. 
Samuel  Adams  was  on  the  committee  that  re 
ported  it,  and  wrote  to  Hawley  that  the  "  united 
colonies  had  torn  into  shivers  the  British  acts 
of  trade."  By  May  10,  under  the  lead  of  John 
Adams,  Congress  had  recommended  to  the  col 
onies  to  set  up  governments  of  their  own,  sup 
pressing  all  crown  authority.  In  May,  also,  the 
Virginia  delegates  were  instructed  from  home 
to  declare  for  independence  ;  Maryland  was 
won  through  the  influence  of  Thomas  Chase  ; 
in  Pennsylvania  the  power  of  Dickinson  visibly 
waned ;  everywhere  there  was  movement,  until 
/-&n\he  5th  of  June  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Vir 
ginia  offered  ^i 


THE  DECLARATION   OF  INDEPENDENCE.     347 

onies  free  and  independent  states,  recommend 
ing  the  formation  of  foreign  alliances,  and  a 
plan  of  confederation. 

As  in  some  elaborate  piece  of  music,  a  mighty 
march  with  distinct,  slowly  succeeding  tones 
goes  forward,  while  the  intervals  are  filled  in 
with  innumerable  subordinated  notes,  so  in  this 
advance  toward  independence,  while  the  sol 
emn  steps  are  measured,  a  thousand  minor  de 
tails  are  everywhere  interspersed.  The  hour 
at  hand  constantly  pressed.  Powder  in  this  di 
rection,  provisions  and  clothes  in  that ;  troops 
to  be  recruited ;  roads  to  be  built ;  inert  Whigs 
to  be  stimulated ;  active  Tories  to  be  sup 
pressed  ;  officers  to  be  commissioned ;  plans  of 
campaign  to  be  devised ;  hostile  projects  to 
be  counteracted ;  —  all  this  must  go  forward. 
Samuel  Adams  bore  his  part  in  all  the  intrica 
cies,  but  saw  to  it  that  the  main  theme  should 
be  forever  thundered  with  a  volume  more  and 
more  prevailing. 

On  the  8th  of  June  began  the  debate  on 
Lee's  resolution.  We  do  not  know  the  special 
arguments  used,  nor  with  certainty  the  names 
of  the  speakers  on  the  side  of  independence,  ex 
cepting  John  Adams.  Elbridge  Gerry,  many 
years  after,  told  the  daughter  of  Samuel  Ad 
ams  that  the  success  of  Lee's  measure  was 
largely  due  to  the  "  timely  remarks  "  of  her 


348  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

father ;  that  in  one  speech  he  occupied  an  un 
usually  long  time,  and  that  two  or  three  waver 
ing  members  were  finally  convinced  by  him. 
He  remembered  it  as  Samuel  Adams's  ablest 
effort.  Edward  Rutledge,  at  length,  brought 
about  a  postponement  of  the  question  for  three 
weeks,  that  the  hesitating  delegates  of  the  cen 
tral  colonies  might  have  time  to  consult  their 
constituents ;  but  not  before  Jefferson,  John 
Adams,  Franklin,  Roger  Sherman,  and  Robert 
R.  Livingston  had  been  made  a  committee  to 
prepare  the  Declaration.  One  who  follows  this 
story  must  feel  regret  that  Samuel  Adams  was 
not  of  this  number.  It  happened  not  through 
neglect,  for  at  the  same  time  he  was  appointed 
to  stand  for  Massachusetts  on  a  committee  re 
garded,  probably,  as  certainly  not  less  impor 
tant,  —  a  committee,  namely,  consisting  of  one 
from  each  colony,  to  prepare  a  plan  of  confed 
eration. 

The  three  weeks  passed,  during  which  the 
ripening  sentiment  of  the  country  made  itself 
strongly  felt  by  Congress.  For  Samuel  Adams 
it  was  a  time  of  labor,  for  now  it  was,  in  per 
sonal  conferences  with  hesitating  members,  that 
he  brought  to  bear  his  peculiar  powers.  When 
the  measure  was  again  taken  up,  on  the  first 
days  of  July,  all  was  secured.  There  was  no 
longer  a  dissenting  voice,  and  the  delegates, 


THE  DECLARATION  OF   INDEPENDENCE.     349 

after  the  memorable  form,  pledged  their  lives, 
their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred  honor. 

It  seems  to  have  been  not  at  all  a  solemn 
hour.  The  weather  was  very  hot,  and  through 
the  open  windows  there  came  in  from  a  stable 
close  by  a  swarm  of  mosquitoes  and  horse-flies, 
who  bit  viciously  at  the  legs  of  the  members 
through  their  silk  stockings.  American  patri 
otism  owes  to  these  energetic  insects  an  obliga 
tion  very  great  and  by  no  means  adequately 
recognized ;  for  the  Fathers,  wrought  upon  by 
the  sedulously  applied  torment,  hastened  to 
sign  the  famous  document  of  Jefferson,  sub 
mitted  at  last  by  the  committee.  Now  that 
the  struggle  was  over,  the  members  became 
positively  hilarious  in  their  good-nature.  John 
Hancock  dashed  down  his  great  signature  in 
such  shape  "  that  George  the  Third  might  read 
it  without  his  spectacles."  "  Now  we  must  all 
hang  together,"  it  was  remarked.  "  Yes,"  said 
Franklin,  "or  we  shall  all  hang  separately." 
"  When  it  comes  to  the  hanging,"  said  fat  Mr. 
Harrison  of  Virginia  to  lean  little  Elbridge 
Gerry  of  Massachusetts,  "  I  shall  have  the  ad 
vantage  of  you  :  for  my  neck,  probably,  will  be 
broken  at  the  first  drop,  whereas  you  may  have 
to  dangle  for  half  an  hour." 

For  Samuel  Adams  it  was  the  most  tri 
umphant  moment  of  his  life ;  but  he  writes 


350  SAMUEL  AD  AM 8. 

thus  calmly  to  his  friend,  John  Pitts,  at  Bos 
ton  :  — 

PHIL.  July,  1776. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  you  were  informed  by  the  last  Post 
that  Congress  had  declared  the  thirteen  United  Col 
onies  free  and  independent  States.  It  must  be  al 
lowed  by  the  impartial  World  that  this  Declaration  has 
not  been  made  rashly.  .  .  .  Too  Much  I  fear  has  been 
lost  by  Delay,  but  an  accession  of  several  Colonies 
has  been  gained  by  it.  Delegates  of  every  Colony 
were  present  and  concurred  in  this  important  Act  ex 
cept  those  of  New  York,  who  were  not  authorized  to 
give  their  Voice  on  the  Question,  but  they  have  since 
publickly  said  that  a  new  Convention  was  soon  to 
meet  in  that  Colony,  and  they  had  not  the  least  Doubt 
of  their  acceding  to  it.  Our  Path  is  now  open  to 
form  a  plan  of  Confederation  and  propose  Alliances 
with  foreign  States.  I  hope  our  Affairs  will  now 
wear  a  more  agreable  aspect  than  they  have  of  late. 

S.  A.1 
1  Copied  from  the  autograph. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

CHARACTER  AND   SERVICE   OF  SAMTJJ  i, 
ADAMS. 

WE  have  readied  a  point  in  the  career  of 
Samuel  Adams  from  which  it  will  be  conven 
ient  to  take  a  retrospect.  He  was  now  fifty- 
four  years  old.  Although  his  life  was  destined 
to  continue  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
longer,  and  although  the  work  that  he  accom 
plished  in  the  years  that  were  coming  was  im 
portant,  his  great  and  peculiar  desert  is  for  the 
work  done  during  these  twelve  years  from  1764 
to  1776,  with  the  description  of  which  this  book 
has  been  thus  far  occupied.  That  Massachu 
setts  led  the  thirteen  colonies  during  the  years 
preliminary  to  the  Revolution  has  been  suffi 
ciently  set  forth  ;  that  Boston  led  Massachusetts 
is  plain  ;  the  reader  of  the  foregoing  pages  will 
clearly  understand  that  it  was  Samuel  Adams 
who  led  Boston.  If  the  remark  that  Bancroft 
uewhere  makes  is  just,  that  "  American  free 
dom  was  more  prepared  by  courageous  coun 
sel  than  successful  war,"  it  would  be  hard  to 


352  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

exaggerate  the  value  of  the  work  of  Samuel 
Adams  in  securing  it. 

Bancroft  has  spoken  of  Samuel  Adams  as, 
more  than  any  other  man,  "  the  type  and  repre 
sentative  of  the  New  England  town-meeting."  l 
Boston,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  largest  com 
munity  that  ever  maintained  the  town  organiza 
tion,' probably  also  the  most  generally  able  and 
intelligent.  No  other  town  ever  played  so  con 
spicuous  a  part  in  connection  with  important 
events.  Probably  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  there  has  been  no  other  so 
interesting  manifestation  of  the  activity  of  the 
folk-mote.  Of  this  town  of  towns  Samuel 
Adams  was  the  son  of  sons.  He  was  strangely 
identified  with  it  always.  He  was  trained  in 
Boston  schools  and  Harvard  College.  He  never 
left  the  town  except  on  the  town's  errands,  or 
those  of  the  Province  of  which  it  was  the  head. 
He  had  no  private  business  after  the  first  years 
of  his  manhood  ;  he  was  the  public  servant  sim 
ply  and  solely  in  places  large  and  small,  —  fire- 
ward,  committee  to  see  that  chimneys  were 
safe,  tax  collector,  moderator  of  town-meeting, 
representative.  One  may  almost  call  him  the 
creature  of  the  town-meeting.  His  development 
has  taken  place  among  the  talk  of  the  town  pol- 

1  In  a  private  conversation  with  the  writer ;  also  Hist,  of 
Constitution,  ii.  260. 


CHARACTER  AND   SERVICE.  353 

iticians  at  his  father's  house,  on  the  floors  of 
Faneuil  Hall  and  the  Old  South,  from  the  time 
when  he  looked  on  as  a  wondering  boy  to  the 
time  when  he  stood  there  as  the  master-figure. 
"His  chief  dependence,"  wrote  Hutchinson, 
in  a  passage  already  quoted,  "is  upon  Boston 
town-meeting,  where  he  originates  the  measures 
which  are  followed  by  the  rest  of  the  towns, 
and,  of  course,  are  adopted  or  justified  by  the 
Assembly."  Edward  Everett  declared  too,  in 
the  Lexington  oration,  that  — 

"  The  throne  of  his  ascendency  was  in  Faneuil 
Hall.  As  each  new  measure  of  arbitrary  power  was 
announced  from  across  the  Atlantic,  or  each  new  act 
of  menace  and  violence  on  the  part  of  the  officers  of 
the  government  or  of  the  army  occurred  in  Boston, 
its  citizens,  oftentimes  in  astonishment  and  perplexity, 
rallied  to  the  sound  of  his  voice  in  Faneuil  Hall ;  and 
there,  as  from  the  crowded  gallery  or  the  moderator's 
chair  he  animated,  enlightened,  fortified,  and  roused 
the  admiring  throng,  he  seemed  to  gather  them  to 
gether  beneath  the  aegis  of  his  indomitable  spirit,  as  a 
hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings." 

Though  the  sphere  of  his  activity  was  to  so 
large  an  extent  the  Massachusetts  Assembly,  he 
was  not  the  less  for  that,  as  has  appeared,  the 
"  man  of  the  town-meeting."  The  Assembly 
was  a  collection  of  deputies,  of  whom  each  was 
the  mouthpiece  of  his  constituency,  having  the 

23 


354  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

folk-mote  behind  him,  which  limited  his  action 
by  careful  instructions,  kept  sharp  watch  of  his 
behavior,  and  suffered  him  to  hold  office  for  so 
short  a  term  that  he  was  in  no  danger  of  getting 
beyond  control.  The  Assembly  was,  therefore, 
rather  a  convention  of  town-meetings  than  a 
representative  body,  bearing  in  mind  Dr.  Lie- 
ber's  distinction  ;  and  when  Samuel  Adams  ar 
rayed  and  manoeuvred  them  in  the  west  cham 
ber  of  the  Old  State  House  against  Bernard  or 
Hutchinson  in  the  east  chamber,  —  the  regi 
ments  lying  threateningly  just  behind,  either 
in  the  town  or  at  the  Castle,  —  it  was  the  Mas 
sachusetts  towns  that  he  marshaled  almost  as 
much  as  if  the  population  had  actually  come 
from  the  hills  and  the  plains,  gathering  as  do 
the  hamlets  of  Uri  and  Appenzell  in  Switzer 
land,  to  legislate  for  themselves  without  any 
delegation  of  authority.1 

We  have  seen  that  New  England  had  been 
prolific  of  children  fitted  for  the  time.  Men 
like  John  Scollay,  William  Cooper,  William 
Molineux,  William  Phillips,  Robert  Pierpont, 
John  Pitts,  Paul  Revere,  —  plain  citizens,  mer 
chants,  mechanics,  selectmen  of  the  town,  dea 
cons  in  the  churches,  cool  headed,  well-to-do, 
persistent,  courageous,  were  sturdy  wheel-horses 
for  the  occasion.  Of  a  higher  order,  and  great 

1  Freeman,  Growth  of  the  English  Const. 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  355 

figures  in  our  story,  have  been  James  Otis, 
James  Bowdoin,  Joseph  llawley,  Thomas  Gush 
ing  ;  and  of  the  younger  generation,  John  Han 
cock,  Josiah  Quincy,  Joseph  Warren,  John  Ad 
ams,  Benjamin  Church, — men  who  had  some 
of  them  a  gift  of  eloquence  to  set  hearts  on  fire, 
some  of  them  executive  power,  some  of  them 
cunning  to  lay  trains  and  supply  the  flash  at  the 
proper  time,  some  wealth,  and  birth,  and  high 
social  position.  It  was  a  wonderful  group,  but 
in  every  one  there  was  some  inadequacy.  The 
splendid  Otis,  whose  leadership  was  at  first  un 
questioned,  who  had  only  to  enter  Boston  town- 
meeting  to  call  forth  shouts  and  clapping  of 
hands,  and  who  had  equal  authority  in  the 
Assembly,  was,  as  early  as  177C,  fast  sinking 
into  insanity.  In  spite  of  fits  of  unreasonable 
violence  and  absurd  folly,  vacillations  between 
extremes  of  subserviency  and  audacious  resist 
ance,  his  influence  with  the  people  long  re 
mained.  He  was  like  the  huge  cannon  on  the 
man-of-war,  in  Victor  Hugo's  story,  that  had 
broken  from  its  moorings  in  the  storm,  and  be 
come  a  terror  to  those  whom  it  formerly  de 
fended.  He  was  indeed  a  great  gun,  from  whom 
in  the  time  of  tfee  Stamp  Act  had  been  sent  the 
most  powerful  bolts  against  unconstitutional 
oppression.  With  lashings  parted,  however,  as 
the  storm  grew  violent  he  plunged  dangerously 


356  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

from  side  to  side,  almost  sinking  the  ship,  all 
the  more  an  object  of  dread  from  the  calibre 
that  had  once  made  him  so  serviceable.  It  was 
a  melancholy  sight,  and  yet  a  great  relief,  when 
his  friends  saw  him  at  last  bound  hand  and  foot, 
and  carried  into  retirement. 

Bowdoin,  also,  was  not  firm  in  health,  and 
though  most  active  and  useful  in  the  Council,  has 
thus  far  done  little  elsewhere.  Hawley,  far  in 
the  interior,  was  often  absent  from  the  centre  in 
critical  times,  and  somewhat  unreliable  through 
a  strange  moodiness  ;  Gushing  was  weak  ;  Han 
cock  was  hampered  by  foibles  that  sometimes 
quite  canceled  his  merits  ;  Quincy  was  a  bril 
liant  youth,  and,  like  a  youth,  sometimes  fickle. 
We  have  seen  him  ready  to  temporize  when 
to  falter  was  destruction,  as  at  the  time  of  the 
casting  over  of  the  tea  ;  again,  in  unwise  fervor, 
he  could  counsel  assassination  as  a  proper  ex 
pedient.  Warren,  too,  could  rush  into  extremes 
of  rashness  and  ferocity,  wishing  that  he  might 
wade  to  the  knees  in  blood,  and  had  just  reached 
sober,  self-reliant  manhood  when  he  was  taken 
off.  John  Adams  showed  only  an  intermittent 
zeal  in  the  public  cause  until  the  preliminary 
work  was  done,  and  Benjamin*  Church,  half 
hearted  and  venal,  early  began  the  double-deal 
ing  which  was  to  bring  him  to  a  traitor's  end. 

There  was  need  in  this  group  of  a  man  of  suf- 


CHARACTER  AND   SERVICE.  357 

ficient  ascendency,  through  intellect  and  char 
acter,  to  win  deference  from  all,  —  wise  enough 
to  see  always  the  supreme  end,  to  know  what 
each  instrument  was  fit  for,  and  to  bring  all 
forces  to  bear  in  the  right  way,  —  a  man  of 
consummate  adroitness,  to  sail  in  torpedo-sown 
waters  without  exciting  an  explosion,  though 
conducting  wires  of  local  prejudice,  class-sensi 
tiveness,  and  personal  foible  on  every  hand  led 
straight  down  to  magazines  of  wrath  which 
might  shatter  the  cause  in  a  moment,  —  a  man 
having  resources  of  his  own  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  could  supplement  from  himself  what 
was  wanting  in  others,  —  always  awake  though 
others  might  want  to  sleep,  always  at  work 
though  others  might  be  tired,  —  a  man  de 
voted,  without  thought  of  personal  gain  or  fame, 
simply  and  solely  to  the  public  cause.  Such 
a  man  there  was,  and  his  name  was  Samuel 
Adams. 

In  character  and  career  he  was  a  singular 
combination  of  things  incongruous.  He  was  in 
religion  the  narrowest  of  Puritans,  but  in  man 
ner  very  genial.  He  was  perfectly  rigid  in  his 
opinions,  but  in  his  expression  of  them  often 
very  compliant.  He  was  the  most  conservative 
of  men,  but  was  regarded  as  were  the  "  aboli 
tion  fanatics  "  in  our  time,  before  the  emancipa 
tion  proclamation.  Who  will  say  that  his  up- 


358  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Tightness  was  not  inflexible  ?  Yet  a  wilier  fox 
than  he  in  all  matters  of  political  manoauvring 
our  history  does  not  show.  In  business  he  had 
no  push  or  foresight,  but  in  politics  was  a  won 
der  of  force  and  shrewdness.  In  a  voice  full  of 
trembling  he  expressed  opinions,  of  which  the 
audacity  would  have  brought  him  at  once  to  the 
halter  if  he  could  have  been  seized.  Even  in 
his  young  manhood  his  hair  had  become  gray 
and  his  hand  shook  as  if  with  paralysis ;  but  he 
lived,  as  we  shall  see,  to  his  eighty-second  year, 
his  work  rarely  interrupted  by  sickness,  serving 
as  governor  of  Massachusetts  for  several  suc 
cessive  terms  after  he  had  lived  his  three  score 
and  ten  years,  almost  the  last  survivor  among 
the  great  pre-revolutionary  figures. 

Among  his  endowments  eloquence  was  not  his 
most  conspicuous  power.  As  an  orator  Samuel 
Adams  was  surpassed  by  several  of  his  contem 
poraries.  His  ordinary  style  of  speech  was 
plain  and  straight-forward,  rarely,  it  is  prob 
able,  burning  out  into  anything  like  splendor. 
For  swelling  rhetoric  he  was  quite  too  sincere 
and  earnest.  John  Adams,  in  his  old  age, 


"  In  his  common  appearance,  he  was  a  plain,  sim 
ple,  decent  citizen,  of  middling  stature,  dress,  and 
manners.  He  had  an  exquisite  ear  for  music,  and  a 
charming  voice  when  he  pleased  to  exert  it.  Yet  his 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  359 

ordinary  speeches  in  town-meetings,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  in  Congress,  exhibited  nothing 
extraordinary;  but  upon  great  occasions,  when  his 
deeper  feelings  were  excited,  he  erected  himself,  or 
rather  nature  seemed  to  erect  him,  without  the  small 
est  symptom  of  affectation,  into  an  upright  dignity  of 
figure  and  gesture,  and  gave  a  harmony  to  his  voice 
which  made  a  strong  impression  on  spectators  and 
auditors,  —  the  more  lasting  for  the  purity,  correct 
ness,  and  nervous  elegance  of  his  style." 

In  Philadelphia,  in  17  T4,  1775,  and  1776, 
John  Adams  probably  was  by  far  the  best  de 
bater  in  Congress.  Jefferson  wrote :  — 

"As  a  speaker  Samuel  Adams  could  not  be  com 
pared  with  his  living  colleague  and  namesake,  whose 
deep  conceptions,  nervous  style,  and  undaunted  firm 
ness  made  him  truly  our  bulwark  in  debate.  But 
Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  although  not  of  fluent  elocution, 
was  so  rigorously  logical,  so  clear  in  his  views,  abun 
dant  in  good  sense,  and  master  always  of  his  subject, 
that  he  commanded  the  most  profound  attention  when 
ever  he  rose  in  an  assembly  by  which  the  froth  of 
declamation  was  heard  with  the  most  sovereign  con 
tempt." 

Samuel  Adams  had  his  say  and  ceased.  One 
may  be  quite  certain  that  he  was  seldom  tedi 
ous.  He  was  never  the  "  dinner-bell "  of  town- 
meeting  or  Assembly ;  but  James  Otis  and  John 
Adams  certainly  surpassed  him  as  orators,  the 


360  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

former  of  whom  might  with  good  reason  con 
test  with  Patrick  Henry  the  title  of  "  the 
American  Chatham,"  while  the  latter  was  well 
called  "the  Colossus  of  debate." 

Nor  is  it  as  a  writer  that  Samuel  Adams  is 
at  his  best.  It  is  probable  that  he  was  one 
of  the  most  voluminous  writers  whom  America 
has  as  yet  produced.  Some  twenty-five  sig 
natures  have  been  identified  as  used  by  him  in 
the  newspapers  at  different  times.  At  the  same 
moment  that  he  filled  the  papers,  he  went  on 
with  his  preparation  of  documents  for  the  town 
and  the  Assembly  till  one  wonders  how  a  sin 
gle  brain  could  have  achieved  it  all.  If  those 
writings  only  which  can  be  identified  were  pub 
lished,  the  collection  would  present  a  formida 
ble  array  of  polemical  documents,  embracing  all 
the  great  issues  out  of  whose  discussion  grew 
our  independence.  They  were  meant  for  a  par 
ticular  purpose,  to  shatter  British  oppression, 
and  when  that  purpose  was  secured,  their  au 
thor  was  perfectly  careless  as  to  what  became 
of  them.  Like  cannon-balls  which  sink  the 
ship,  and  then  are  lost  in  the  sea,  so  the  bolts 
of  Samuel  Adams,  after  riddling  British  au 
thority  in  America,  must  be  sought  by  diving 
beneath  the  oblivion  that  has  rolled  over  them. 
Of  the  portion  that  has  been  recovered,  these 
pages  have  given  specimens  enough  to  justify  a 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  361 

high  estimate  of  the  genius  and  accomplish 
ments  of  their  author.  It  was  an  age  of  great 
political  writers.  Contemporary  in  England 
were  Burke  and  "  Junius,"  -  in  France,  Mon 
tesquieu,  Rousseau,  and  Voltaire,  —  in  America, 
Dickinson,  Franklin,  and  Paine.  Samuel  Ad 
ams  will  bear  a  good  comparison  with  them, 
generally  offering  for  any  shortcoming  some 
compensating  merit.  If  there  is  never  the  mag 
nificence  of  Burke,  there  is  an  absence,  too,  of 
all  turgid  and  labored  rhetoric.  If  there  is  a  lack 
of  Franklin's  pith  and  wit,  there  is  a  lack,  too, 
of  Poor  Richard's  penny  wisdom.  If  we  miss 
the  tremendous  invective  of  "  Jnnius,"  we  find 
instead  of  acrid  cruelty  the  spirit  of  humanity. 
If  there  is  no  over  bitter  denunciation,  there  is 
on  the  other  hand  no  milk  and  water.  While 
he  is  never  pedantic,  the  reader  has  had  occa 
sion  to  see  his  familiarity  with  ancient  and 
modern  literature,  and  in  particular  his  ac 
quaintance  with  writers  upon  constitutional  his 
tory.  The  clearness  of  his  style  is  admirable, 
his  logic  unvaryingly  good.  His  intensity  of 
conviction,  both  religious  and  political,  some 
times  makes  him  narrow.  He  can  speak  only 
in  stern  terms  of  a  Tory ;  scarcely  otherwise  of 
a  Catholic  or  Episcopalian ;  to  free-thinkers 
like  Franklin  and  Paine  he  did  not  at  first  find 
it  easy  to  be  cordial.  But  had  he  been  more 


362  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

tolerant,  he  must  have  been  less  intense  and 
forceful. 

That  the  power  of  Samuel  Adams  as  a  writer 
was  better  appreciated  by  his  contemporaries 
than  it  has  been  by  his  successors  is  abun 
dantly  apparent.  The  man  who  more  than  any 
other  felt  his  blows  has  left  it  on  record  that 
Samuel  Adams  had  been  "for  near  twenty 
years  a  writer  against  government  in  the  pub 
lic  newspapers,  at  first  but  an  indifferent  one ; 
long  practice  caused  him  to  arrive  at  great  per 
fection,  and  to  acquire  a  talent  of  artfully  and 
fallaciously  insinuating  into  the  minds  of  his 
readers  a  prejudice  against  the  character  of  all 
whom  he  attacked,  beyond  any  other  man  I 
ever  knew."  "  Bernard,"  says  a  contemporary, 
"  used  to  4  damn  that  Adams.  Every  dip  of  his 
pen  stings  like  a  horned  snake.'  "  These  are 
the  bitter,  chagrin-charged  comments  of  his 
opponents.  His  friends  found  no  words  strong 
enough  to  make  known  their  appreciation. 
That  the  patriots  were  in  the  majority  they 
directly  attributed  to  him.  Says  James  Sulli 
van  :  "  By  his  speeches  and  4  Gazette  '  produc 
tions  a  large  majority  was  produced  and  main 
tained  in  Massachusetts  in  opposition  to  the 
claims  of  the  ministry."  Says  John  Adams : 
"  A  collection  of  his  writings  would  be  as  curi 
ous  as  voluminous.  It  would  throw  light  upon 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  363 

American  history  for  fifty  years.  In  it  would 
be  found  specimens  of  a  nervous  simplicity  of 
reasoning  and  eloquence  that  have  never  been 
rivaled  in  America." 

It  was,  however,  as  a  manager  of  men  that 
Samuel  Adams  was  greatest.  Such  a  master  of 
the  methods  by  which  a  town-meeting  may  be 
swayed,  the  world  has  never  seen.  On  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  people,  the  ship-yard 
men,  the  distillers,  the  sailors,  as  well  as  the 
merchants  and  ministers,  he  knew  precisely 
what  springs  to  touch.  He  was  the  prince  of 
canvassers,  the  very  king  of  the  caucus,  of  which 
his  father  was  the  inventor.  His  ascendency 
was  quite  extraordinary  and  no  less  marked 
over  men  of  ability  than  over  ordinary  minds. 
Always  clear-headed  and  cool  in  the  most 
confusing  turmoil,  he  had  ever  at  command, 
whether  he  was  button-holing  a  refractory  in 
dividual  or  haranguing  a  Faneuil  Hall  meeting, 
a  simple  but  most  effective  style  of  speech.  As 
to  his  tact,  was  it  ever  surpassed  ?  We  have 
seen  Samuel  Adams  introduce  Hancock  into 
the  public  service,  as  he  did  a  dozen  others.  It 
is  curious  to  notice  how  he  knew  afterwards  in 
what  ways,  while  he  stroked  to  sleep  Hancock's 
vanity  and  peevishness,  to  bring  him,  all  un 
conscious,  to  bear,  —  now  against  the  Boston 
Tories,  now  against  the  English  ministry,  now 


364  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

against  prejudice  in  the  other  colonies.  Pen 
niless  as  he  was  himself,  it  was  a  great  point, 
when  the  charge  was  made  that  the  Massachu 
setts  leaders  were  desperate  adventurers  who 
had  nothing  to  risk,  to  be  able  to  parade  Han 
cock  in  his  silk  and  velvet,  with  his  handsome 
vehicle  and  aristocratic  mansion.  One  hardly 
knows  which  to  wonder  at  most,  the  astuteness 
or  the  self-sacrifice  with  which,  in  order  to  pre 
sent  a  measure  effectively  or  to  humor  a  touchy 
co-worker,  he  continually  postpones  himself 
while  he  gives  the  foreground  to  others.  Per 
haps  the  most  useful  act  of  his  life  was  the 
bringing  into  being  of  the  Boston  Committee 
of  Correspondence ;  yet  when  all  was  arranged, 
while  he  himself  kept  the  laboring  oar,  he  put 
at  the  head  the  faltering  Otis.  Again  and 
again,  when  a  fire  burned  for  which  he  could 
not  trust  himself,  he  would  turn  on  the  mag 
nificent  speech  of  Otis,  or  Warren,  or  Quincy, 
or  Church,  who  poured  their  copious  jets,  often 
quite  unconscious  that  cunning  Sam  Adams 
really  managed  the  valves  and  was  directing 
the  stream. 

The  same  ability  at  management  has  showed 
itself  in  his  career  in  the  Continental  Congress. 
"  I  always  considered  him,"  said  Jefferson, "  more 
than  any  other  member,  the  fountain  of  our 
more  important  measures  ;  "  and  again,  writing 
in  1825 : — 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  365 

"If  there  was  any  Palinurus  to  the  Revolution, 
Samuel  Adams  was  the  man.  Indeed,  in  the  East 
ern  States,  for  a  year  or  two  after  it  began,  he  was 
truly  the  Man  of  the  Revolution.  He  was  constantly 
holding  caucuses  of  distinguished  men  (among  whom 
was  R.  H.  Lee),  at  which  the  generality  of  the  meas 
ures  pursued  were  previously  determined  on,  and  at 
which  the  parts  were  assigned  to  the  different  actors 
who  afterwards  appeared  in  them.  John  Adams  had 
very  little  part  in  these  caucuses  ;  but  as  one  of  the 
actors  in  the  measures  decided  on  in  them,  he  was  a 
Colossus." 

How  profound  was  the  belief  which  the  To 
ries  held  in  his  cunning  has  been  illustrated  in 
the  case  of  Hutchinson.  Here  are  still  other 
testimonies.  The  charge  of  duplicity  becomes 
intelligible,  from  that  Machiavellian  streak  in 
his  character,  the  existence  of  which  it  is  use 
less  to  attempt  to  deny  :  — 

"  John  Adams  is  the  creature  and  kinsman  of  Sam 
uel  Adams,  the  Cromwell  of  New  England,  to  whose 
intriguing  arts  the  Declaration  of  Independence  is  in 
a  great  measure  to  be  attributed,  the  history  of  which 
will  not  be  uninteresting. 

"  When  the  Northern  delegates  broached  their  po 
litical  tenets  in  Congress,  they  were  interrogated  by 
some  of  the  Southern  ones,  whether  they  did  or  did 
not  aim  at  independence,  to  which  mark  their  violent 
principles  seemed  to  tend.  Samuel  Adams,  with  as 
grave  a  face  as  hypocrisy  ever  wore,  affirmed  that 


366  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

they  did  not ;  but  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  in 
a  circle  of  confidential  friends  (as  he  took  them  to 
be),  confessed  that  the  independence  of  the  colonies 
had  been  the  great  object  of  his  life ;  that  whenever 
he  had  met  with  a  youth  of  parts,  he  had  endeavored 
to  instil  such  notions  into  his  mind,  and  had  neglected 
no  opportunity,  either  in  public  or  in  private,  of  pre 
paring  the  way  for  that  event  which  now,  thank  God, 
was  at  hand. 

"  He  watched  the  favorable  moment  when,  by  plead 
ing  the  necessity  of  a  foreign  alliance,  and  urging  the 
impracticability  of  obtaining  it  without  a  declaration 
of  independence,  he  finally  succeeded  in  the  accon> 
plishment  of  his  wishes."  1 

Another  Tory,  writing  from  Boston  early  in 
this  year,  assails  Adams  and  Hancock  in  this 
wise :  — 

"  This  man,  whom  but  a  day  before  hardly  any 
man  would  have  trusted  with  a  shilling,  and  whose 
honesty  they  were  jealous  of,  now  became  the  confi^ 
dant  of  the  people.  With  his  oily  tongue  he  duped  a 
man  whose  brains  were  shallow  and  pockets  deep,  and 
ushered  him  to  the  public  as  a  patriot  too.  He  filled 
his  head  with  importance,  and  emptied  his  pockets, 
and  as  a  reward  kicked  him  up  the  ladder  where  he 
now  presides  over  the  '  Twelve  United  Provinces,' 
and  where  they  both  are  at  present  plunging  you,  my 
countrymen,  into  the  depths  of  distress." 

1  "Decius,"  Lond.  Morn.  Post,  1779  (Moore's  Diary  of  the 
Revolution,  ii.  144). 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  367 

After  the  destruction  of  Rivington's  press 
in  New  York,  the  loyalist  printer  returned  to 
England,  and  published  a  pamphlet  to  show 
that  the  intention  of  Congress  was  to  assert 
American  independence  and  maintain  it  with 
the  sword. 

"  That  I  may  thoroughly  explain  this  matter,"  he 
continues,  "  it  is  necessary  the  public  should  be  made 
acquainted  with  a  very  conspicuous  character,  no  less 
a  man  than  Mr.  SAMUEL  ADAMS,  the  would-be  Crom 
well  of  America.  As  to  his  colleague,  JOHN  HAN 
COCK,  that  gentleman  is,  in  the  language  of  Hu- 
dibras,  — 

*  A  very  good  and  useful  tool 
Which  knaves  do  work  with,  called  a  fool/ 

But  he  is  too  contemptible  for  animadversion.  He 
may  move  our  pity,  not  our  indignation.  Mr.  Ad 
ams,  on  the  other  hand,  is  one  of  those  demagogues 
who  well  know  how  to  quarter  themselves  on  a  man 
of  fortune,  and,  having  no  property  of  his  own,  has 
for  some  time  found  it  mighty  convenient  to  appro 
priate  the  fortune  of  Mr.  Hancock  to  public  uses,  — 
I  mean  the  very  laudable  purpose  of  carrying  on  a 
trade  in  politics. 

"  Mr.  Adams  finding,  therefore,  how  very  profitable 
a  business  of  this  kind  might  be  made  without  the 
necessity  of  a  capital  of  his  own,  it  is  no  wonder  he 
should  eagerly  embrace  the  opportunity  of  dealing  in 
political  wares  with  the  demagogues  of  Britain. 

"  In  justice  to  that  gentleman's  talents  and  virtues, 


368  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

it  must  be  confessed  that  he  is  an  adept  in  the  busi 
ness,  and  is  as  equal  to  the  task  of  forwarding  a  re-| 
bellion  as  most  men.  He  is  therefore  far  from  being 
unworthy  the  notice  of  British  patriots.  His  politics 
are  of  a  nature  admirably  adapted  to  impose  on  a 
credulous  multitude. 

"  Mr.  Adams's  character  may  be  defined  in  a  few 
words.  He  is  a  hypocrite  in  religion,  a  republican  in 
politics,  of  sufficient  cunning  to  form  a  consummate 
knave,  possessed  of  as  much  learning  as  is  necessary 
to  disguise  the  truth  with  sophistry,  and  so  complete 
a  moralist  that  it  is  one  of  his  favorite  axioms,  '  The 
end  will  justify  the  means.'  When  to  such  accom 
plished  talents  and  principles  we  add  an  empty  pocket, 
an  unbounded  ambition,  and  a  violent  disaffection  to 
Great  Britain,  we  shall  be  able  to  form  some  idea  of 
Mr.  Samuel  Adams." 

"That  Machiavellian  streak  in  his  char 
acter  !  "  But  do  we  need  to  go  out  of  our  way 
and  call  it  Machiavellian  ?  He  would  have 
been,  alas !  a  less  typical  New  Englander  had 
he  not  stooped  now  and  then  to  a  piece  of  sharp 
practice.  No  Sam  Slick,  peddling  out  his  cargo 
of  clocks,  or  whittling  away  at  a  horse-swap, 
or  (we  must  regretfully  say  it)  inventing  and 
distributing  his  wooden  nutmegs,  was  ever 
"  cuter "  than  Samuel  Adams.  The  uncon 
scionable  outside  world,  while  it  ascribes  to  the 
Yankee  character  a  thousand  traits  of  worth, 
persists  in  detecting  in  the  pot  of  ointment  a 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  369 

most  egregious  fly.  Who  will  deny  that  the 
defect  is  there  ?  Sam  Adams  was  too  thorough 
a  Yankee  to  be  quite  without  it.  We  believe 
that  he  fell  into  it  unconsciously.  In  the  cases 
of  sharp  practice  that  can  be  brought  home 
against  him,  it  was,  at  any  rate,  never  for  him 
self,  but  always  for  what  he  believed  the  public 
good  ;  for  from  first  to  last  one  can  detect  in 
him  no  thought  of  personal  gain  or  fame. 

As  Samuel  Adams's  followers  often  did  not 
know  that  they  were  being  led,  so,  possibly,  he 
himself  failed  to  see  sometimes  that  he  was 
leading,  believing  himself  to  be  the  mere  agent 
of  the  will  of  the  great  people,  which  decided 
this  way  or  that.  Quite  careless  was  he  as  re^ 
gards  wealth,  as  regards  his  position  before  his 
contemporaries  and  in  history.  Time  and  again 
the  credit  for  great  measures  which  he  orig 
inated  was  given  to  men  who  were  simply  his 
agents,  and  there  was  never  a  remonstrance 
from  him  ;  time  and  again  the  men  whom  he 
brought  forward  from  obscurity,  and  whom  he 
set  here  and  there  with  scarcely  more  volition 
of  their  own  than  so  many  chess-men,  stood  in 
an  eminence  before  the  world  which  is  not  yet 
lost,  obscuring  the  real  master.  Papers  which 
would  have  established  his  title  to  a  position 
among  the  greatest,  he  destroyed  by  his  own 
hand,  or  left  at  hap-hazard. 

24 


370  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

If  we  briefly  sum  up  the  services  rendered 
during  these  twelve  years,  the  particulars  of 
which,  as  they  have  been  detailed,  have  seemed 
involved  and  confusing,  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
the  men  of  his  own  day  came  to  set  him  by  the 
side  of  Washington,  and  how  writers  of  our 
time  can  declare  him  "  second  only  to  Wash 
ington."  1  Those  instructions  to  the  Boston 
representatives  in  1764,  in  which  Samuel  Ad 
ams  spoke  for  the  town,  emerging  then,  at  the 
age  of  forty-two,  into  the  public  life  where  he 
remained  to  the  end,  contain  the  first  sugges 
tion  ever  made  in  America  for  a  meeting  of  the 
colonies  looking  toward  a  resistance  to  British 
encroachments.  From  that  paper  came  the 
"  Stamp  Act  Congress."  While  the  contem 
poraries  of  Samuel  Adams  rejoiced  over  the  re 
peal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  he  saw  in  the  declaration 
of  Parliament  by  which  it  was  accompanied, 
—  "  that  it  was  competent  to  legislate  for  the 
colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever,"  —  plain  evi 
dence  that  more  trouble  was  in  store ;  and  he 
was  the  most  influential  among  the  few  who 
strove  to  prevent  a  disastrous  supineness  among 

1  "  A  man  whom  Plutarch,  if  he  had  only  lived  late  enough, 
would  have  delighted  to  include  in  his  gallery  of  worthies,  a 
man  who  in  the  history  of  the  American  Revolution  is  second 
only  to  Washington,  Samuel  Adams."  —  JOHN  FISKE  (taken 
from  his  forthcoming  History  of  the  American  People,  by  kind 
permission  of  the  author). 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  371 

the  people.  From  this  time  forward,  in  Massa 
chusetts,  the  substantial  authorship  of  almost 
every  state  paper  of  importance  can  be  traced 
to  him ;  so,  too,  the  initiation  of  almost  every 
great  measure. 

Nor  was  he  the  less  a  man  of  national  im 
portance  from  the  circumstance  that  his  activ 
ity  for  the  most  part,  up  to  this  time,  has  been 
circumscribed  by  the  limits  of  Massachusetts. 
As  in  Massachusetts  the  stirrings  of  freedom 
were  most  early  and  most  earnestly  felt,  so  for 
many  years  Massachusetts  was  a  battle-ground 
in  which  arbitrary  power  and  popular  liberty 
were  hotly  contending,  while  the  remaining 
Provinces  had  little  to  disturb  their  peace. 
"  Boston  is  suffering  in  the  common  cause," 
became  the  cry  of  America,  at  the  time  of  the 
Port  Bill,  in  1774.  Massachusetts  had  been 
no  less  suffering  in  the  common  cause  for  a  full 
decade  before,  the  long  parliamentary  wrestle 
between  her  General  Court  and  the  royal  gov 
ernors  having  been  waged  for  the  benefit  of 
the  whole  thirteen  colonies  no  less  than  for 
herself.  Elsewhere,  no  doubt,  there  was  dis 
turbance  :  in  Virginia,  in  particular,  the  dis 
cord  was  grave  between  the  Burgesses  and  the 
royal  representatives.  Massachusetts,  however, 
was  far  more  than  any  other  Province  the  field 
of  strife,  the  critical  point  beyond  all  others 


372  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

being  the  Old  State  House  in  Boston,  with 
Hutchinson  or  Bernard  in  one  end,  and  the 
Assembly  in  the  other.  The  great  leader  of 
the  Massachusetts  folk-motes  manoeuvred  and 
fought  in  a  small  space;  but  what  was  done 
was  done  for  an  entire  continent.  It  was 
no  combat  of  mere  local  significance.  Who 
can  estimate  the  greatness  of  the  interests  in 
volved  ? 

From  1768,  perhaps  from  an  earlier  period, 
he  saw  no  satisfactory  issue  from  the  dispute 
but  in  the  independence  of  America,  and  began 
to  labor  for  it  with  all  his  energy.  It  had  been 
a  dream  with  many,  indeed,  that  some  time 
there  was  to  be  a  great  independent  empire  in 
this  western  world ;  but  no  public  man  saw  so 
soon  as  Samuel  Adams,  that  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  the  time  for  it  had 
come,  and  that  to  work  for  it  was  the  duty  of 
all  patriots.1  We  have  passed  in  review  the 

1  July  1,  1774,  Hutchinson,  having  just  reached  London, 
was  hurried  by  Lord  Dartmouth  into  the  presence  of  the  king, 
without  being  allowed  time  to  change  his  clothes  after  the 
voyage.  A  conversation  of  two  hours  took  place,  the  king 
showing  the  utmost  eagerness  to  find  out  the  truth  as  to  Amer 
ica.  While  answering  the  king's  inquiries  concerning  the  pop 
ular  leaders,  Hutchinson  remarked  that  Samuel  Adams  was 
regarded  "  as  the  opposer  of  Government  and  a  sort  of  Wilkes 
in  New  England. 

"  King :  What  gives  him  his  importance  ? 

"  Hutchinson :  A  great  pretended  zeal  for  liberty  and  a  most 


CHARACTER  AND   SERVICE.  373 

great  figures  of  our  Revolutionary  epoch,  one 
by  one,  and  seen  that  neither  then,  seven  years 
before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  nor 
long  after,  was  there  a  man  except  Samuel  Ad 
ams  who  looked  forward  to  it  and  worked  for  it. 
The  people  generally  had  not  conceived  of  the 
attainment  of  independence  as  a  present  possi 
bility.  Those  who  came  to  think  it  possible, 
like  Franklin,  Dickinson  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
James  Otis,  shrank  from  the  idea  as  involving 
calamity,  and  only  tried  to  secure  a  better  reg 
ulated  dependence.  As  late  as  1775,  the  idea  of 
separation,  according  to  Jefferson,  had  "never 
yet  entered  into  any  person's  mind." 1  It  was 
well  known,  however,  what  were  the  opinions  of 
Samuel  Adams.  He  was  isolated  even  in  the 
group  that  most  closely  surrounded  him.  Even 
so  trusty  a  follower  and  attached  a  friend  as 
Joseph  Warren  could  not  stand  with  him  here. 
What  Garrison  was  to  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
Samuel  Adams  was  to  independence,  —  a  man 
looked  on  with  the  greatest  dread  as  an  ex 
tremist  and  fanatic  by  many  of  those  who  after 
wards  fought  for  freedom,  down  almost  to  that 

inflexible  natural  temper.  He  was  the  first  that  publicly  as 
serted  the  independency  of  the  colonies  upon  the  kingdom."  — 
Diary  and  Letters  of  Hutchinson,  p.  167. 

Hutchinson  had  before  declared  the  same  thing  in  a  letter 
to  Dartmouth,  already  quoted. 

1  Cooke's  Virginia,  p.  375. 


374  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

very  day,  July  4,  1776,  when,  largely  through, 
his  skilful  and  tireless  management,  independ 
ence  was  brought  to  pass. 

We  are  accustomed  to  call  Washington  the 
"  Father  of  his  country."  It  would  be  useless, 
if  one  desired  to  do  so,  to  dispute  his  right  to 
the  title.  He  and  no  other  will  bear  it  through 
the  ages.  He  established  our  country's  free 
dom  with  the  sword,  then  guided  its  course 
during  the  first  critical  years  of  its  independent 
existence.  No  one  can  know  the  figure  without 
feeling  how  real  is  its  greatness.  It  is  impossi 
ble  to  see  how,  without  Washington,  the  nation 
could  have  ever  been.  His  name  is  and  should 
be  greatest.  But  after  all  is  "  Father  of  Amer 
ica  "  the  best  title  for  Washington  ?  Where 
and  what  was  Washington  during  those  long 
preliminary  years  while  the  nation  was  taking 
form  as  the  bones  do  grow  in  the  womb  of  her 
that  is  with  child?  A  quiet  planter,  who  in 
youth  as  a  surveyor  had  come  to  know  the 
woods;  who  in  his  young  manhood  had  led 
bodies  of  provincials  with  some  efficiency  in 
certain  unsuccessful  military  expeditions  ;  who 
in  maturity  had  sat,  for  the  most  part  in  silence, 
among  his  talking  colleagues  in  the  House  of 
Burgesses,  with  scarcely  a  suggestion  to  make 
in  all  the  sharp  debate,  while  the  new  nation 
was  shaping.  There  is  another  character  in 


CHARACTER  AND  SERVICE.  375 

our  history  to  whom  was  once  given  the  title, 
"Father  of  America,"  —  a  man  to  a  large  ex 
tent  forgotten,  his  reputation  overlaid  by  that 
of  those  who  followed  him,  —  no  other  than 
this  man  of  the  town-meeting,  Samuel  Adams. 
As  far  as  the  genesis  of  America  is  concerned, 
Samuel  Adams  can  more  properly  be  called  the 
"  Father  of  America  "  than  Washington. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

CLOSING  YEAES. 

BRITISH  authority  in  America,  so  far  at 
any  rate  as  this  could  be  done  in  the  forum, 
was  shattered  by  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence.  The  work  was  then  transferred  to  the 
field.  Samuel  Adams's  heroic  time  has  come 
to  an  end ;  his  distinctive  work  is  done  ;  if  he 
had  died  at  the  Declaration,  his  fame  would 
be  as  great  as  it  is  now ;  what  further  he  ac 
complished,  though  often  of  value,  an  ordinary 
man  might  have  performed.  The  events  of  his 
life  may  be  given  henceforth  with  little  detail. 

So  long  as  the  war  continued  he  remained  in 
Congress,  with  the  exception  of  one  year,  when 
infirmity,  and  the  fact  also  that  Massachusetts 
was  in  the  act  of  adopting  her  state  constitu 
tion,  in  connection  with  which  he  rendered 
important  service,  kept  him  at  home.  Con 
gress  fell  woefully  in  popular  esteem,  but  the 
work  and  the  responsibility  remained  vast  for 
the  few  who  were  faithful.  Samuel  Adams 
has  been  accused  of  unfriendliness  to  Wash- 


UNIT'S  IIS] 

CLOSING    YEARS.  \X     >  » 


ington,  and  of  having  been 
Conway  cabal.  The  papers  are  in 
ervation  which  put  at  rest  this  calumny,  and 
enable  us  to  understand  precisely  what  feeling 
Samuel  Adams  did  at  this  time  entertain  for 
Washington.  /  It  was  neither  strange  nor  at 
all  discreditable  at  that  period  in  the  war  to 
doubt  whether  Washington  was  the  best  man 
in  the  country  for  the  head  of  the  army.  The 
supreme  position  in  the  hearts  of  Americans, 
which  he  came  afterwards  to  hold,  was  at  that 
time  far  enough  from  being  achieved.  In  the 
flood  of  disaster  which  had  so  often  over 
whelmed  the  American  efforts,  could  any  hu 
man  eye  then  see  clearly  what  portion  of  re 
sponsibility  for  it  rested  on  the  commander, 
what  portion  on  his  subordinates,  and  what 
was  due  to  things  in  general?  So  far,  the 
only  brilliant  achievements  of  Washington  had 
been  the  victories  at  Trenton  and  Princeton, 
and  that  the  credit  for  those  successes  belonged 
to  him  was  less  clear  than  it  is  now.  The 
"  Fabian  policy,"  which  he  had  to  so  large  an 
extent  pursued,  and  which  the  world  now  be 
lieves  to  have  been  masterly,  did  not  vindicate 
itself  at  once  to  the  contemporaries  of  Washing 
ton.  /  To  Samuel  Adams,  so  straight  and  im 
petuous,  who  from  the  beginning  of  his  course 
had  sought  his  object  with  the  directness  and 


378  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

force  of  a  cannon-ball,  and  who  felt  that  a  fair 
exertion  of  the  military  strength  of  America 
ought  to  burst  to  pieces  the  British  opposition, 
Washington,  not  unnaturally,  seemed  unener- 
getic.  y 

But  though  Samuel  Adams  might  be  secretly 
impatient,  and  might  give  his  impatience  ex 
pression  in  directions  where  he  thought  good 
might  result,  he  had  no  desire  ]put  to  sustain 
the  leader  in  all  efficient  work.  '  He  had  even 
been  willing  to  make  him  dictator.  His  own 
declarations,  repeatedly  uttered  under  circum 
stances  which  must  cause  them  to  seem  true  to 
the  most  suspicious,  make  it  clear  that  he  was 
never  Washington's  enemy,  and  never  plotted 
for  his  removal.  /  A  word  must  be  said  about 
the  origin  of  this  calumny,  which  troubled 
Adams  in  his  lifetime,  and  followed  him  after 
his  death.  We  have  already  seen  Samuel  Ad 
ams  the  object  of  the  enmity  of  John  Han 
cock,  in  the  old  days  of  the  struggle  wkh- 
Hutchinson.  Now,  again,  Hancock' sJ^worse 
nature  has  the  upper  hand,  and  gives  dregrace- 
ful  evidence  of  itself.  His  disposition  to  asso 
ciate  with  the  aristocratic,  temporizing  element, 
his  obstructive  course  when  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  pending,  the  absurd  pomp 
which  he  persisted  in  maintaining  as  President 
of  Congress,  even  when  the  nation  seemed  at 


CLOSING    YEARS.  379 

the  last  gasp,  offended  much  his  austere  and 
simple-minded  colleague.  Undoubtedly  these 
things  had  provoked  from  Adams  severe  re 
mark.  This  sharp  criticism,  combined  with 
the  fact  that  the  Tories,  and  indeed  others, 
habitually  spoke  of  Hancock  in  a  way  quite  ex 
asperating  to  one  so  vain,  as  the  "  ape "  or 
"  dupe  "  of  Samuel  Adams,  gives  abundant  ex 
planation  why  an  estrangement  should  have 
come  about.  Hancock  pursued  his  former  friend 
with  great  malignity.  He  circulated,  if  he  did 
not  originate,  the  slander  that  Samuel  Adams 
was  the  enemy  of  Washington;  and  in  other 
ways  used  his  high  prestige  to  spread  false 
ideas  as  to  his  colleague's  opinions  and  aims. 

Said  Mr.  Adams :  — 

"  The  Arts  they  make  use  of  are  contemptible. 
Last  year,  as  you  observe,  I  was  an  Enemy  to  General 
Washington.  This  was  said  to  render  me  odious  to 
the  People.  The  Man  who  fabricated  that  Charge 
did  not  believe  it  himself."  l 

In  July,  1778,  the  British  fleet  left  the  Dela 
ware  in  haste,  fearing  to  be  blocked  up  by  the 
superior  force  of  d'Estaing,  about  to  arrive, 
and  immediately  Clinton,  abandoning  Phila 
delphia,  retreated  through  New  Jersey,  fighting 

1  In  the  Adams  papers  are  several  letters  of  interest  as 
bearing  upon  this  point.  One  written  to  General  Greene  has 
an  especial  value. 


380  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

on  the  way  the  battle  of  Monmouth,  where  vic 
tory  was  so  balked  for  the  Americans  by  the 
misconduct  of  Charles  Lee.  Immediately  after 
ward  the  French  admiral,  with  twelve  sail  of 
the  line,  four  frigates,  and  four  thousand  troops, 
sailed  into  the  Delaware,  bringing  M.  Gerard, 
the  ambassador,  for  whom  Congress,  at  once  re 
turning  to  Philadelphia,  prepared  a  great  recep 
tion.  The  ceremonies  took  place  on  August  5, 
and  were  more  elaborate  than  had  ever  before 
been  witnessed  in  America.  Somewhat  ludi 
crously,  in  this  pompous  pageant  Samuel  Ad 
ams,  associated  with  his  old  friend  Richard 
Henry  Lee,  appears  as  master  of  ceremonies, 
leading  off  in  the  bowings  and  parade  by  which 
the  man  of  Versailles  was  to  be  made  to  feel 
that  he  had  not  fallen  among  the  Goths.  But 
more  than  once  before  this  we  have  seen  that 
Samuel  Adams  could  pocket  his  preferences  to 
serve  an  occasion. 

The  French  alliance  came  near  going  to  ship 
wreck  at  the  outset.  Great  was  the  mortifica 
tion,  great  the  wrath  at  the  French,  to  whose 
desertion,  as  it  was  called,  the  failure  in  Rhode 
Island  was  attributed.  A  serious  riot  between 
American  and  French  sailors  occurred  in  Bos 
ton,  in  which  all  the  old  animosity  of  the  French 
war,  which  for  the  time  had  slumbered,  seemed 
on  the  point  of  reappearing.  Washington  and 


CLOSING    YEARS.  881 

Congress  took  all  means  possible  to  restore  a 
cordial  understanding,  in  which  efforts  Samuel 
Adams  bore  a  great  part.  Here  it  was,  too, 
that  Hancock  rendered  one  of  his  greatest  ser 
vices,  his  very  vanity  and  prof useness,  for  once, 
helping  to  an  excellent  result.  He  threw  his 
house  open  to  d'Estaing  and  his  officers,  enter 
taining  them  magnificently.  Thirty  or  forty 
dined  with  him  each  day,  whom  he  dazzled  with 
his  liveries  and  plate.  At  Concert  Hall,  too,  he 
gave  them  a  great  ball,  and  stimulated  other 
Whigs  to  similar  hospitalities.  The  entente  cor- 
diale,  which  the  Newport  storm  had  disturbed, 
grew  firm  again  amid  the  steam  of  punch  and 
the  airs  of  the  Boston  fiddlers. 

Adams  opposed,  in  1780,  Washington's  plan 
for  giving  to  officers  serving  through  the  war 
half  pay  for  life.  To  this  period,  too,  belongs 
one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  of  his  career, 
which  must  be  referred  to  what  may  be  called 
his  town-meeting  ideas.  He  showed  his  dislike 
to  the  delegation  of  power  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  oppose  the  establishment  of  departments 
presided  over  by  secretaries,  preferring  as  the 
executive  machinery  of  Congress  the  form  of 
committees,  which  had  prevailed  from  the  first, 
and  had  often  proved  inconvenient.  There  was 
probably  a  degree  of  justice  in  the  criticism  of 
Luzerne,  the  French  minister  :  — 


382  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  Divisions  prevail  in  Congress  about  the  new  mode 
of  transacting  business  by  secretaries  of  different  de 
partments.  Samuel  Adams,  whose  obstinate,  resolute 
character  was  so  useful  to  the  Revolution  at  its  origin, 
but  who  shows  himself  so  ill  suited  to  the  conduct  of 
affairs  in  an  organized  government,  has  placed  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  advocates  of  the  old  system  of 
committees  of  Congress,  instead  of  relying  on  minis 
ters  or  secretaries  under  the  new  arrangement." 

He  opposed  the  establishment  of  a  Foreign 
Office ;  so,  too,  of  a  War  Department,  for  the 
secretaryship  of  which  the  name  of  General 
Sullivan  had  been  mentioned.  He  opposed, 
with  equal  decision,  the  appointment  of  a 
secretary  of  finance,  which  position,  however, 
was  created  and  bestowed  upon  Robert  Morris, 
with  results  most  important  and  beneficent. 
For  the  moment  he  consented  to  the  dictator 
ship  of  Washington,  but  generally  he  looked 
askance  at  all  approaches  to  the  "one  man 
power,"  standing  ready  to  sacrifice  efficiency 
even  in  desperate  circumstances,  rather  than 
contravene  the  principle  that  authority  should 
rest,  as  immediately  as  possible,  in  the  hands 
of  the  plain  people. 

On  February  24,  1781,  at  length,  four  years 
and  a  half  after  the  scheme  had  been  initiated, 
the  Articles  of  Confederation  were  ratified,  and 
the  affixing  of  his  signature  to  these  was  the 


CLOSING    YEARS. 

last  act  of  Samuel  Adams  in  Congress.  The 
committee  appointed  to  draw  up  the  Articles 
of  Confederation,  created  at  the  same  time  with 
the  committee  to  draw  up  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  had  found  their  work  one  of  the 
greatest  difficulty.  Samuel  Adams,  it  will  be 
remembered,  represented  Massachusetts  on  the 
former  committee,  while  John  Adams  served 
upon  the  latter.  The  embarrassing  labor  had 
gone  forward  whenever,  from  time  to  time,  a 
moment  could  be  snatched  from  the  ever  press 
ing  conduct  of  the  war.  It  seemed  scarcely 
possible  to  frame  a  practicable  scheme.  The 
several  States,  having  declared  themselves  free 
from  the  authority  of  England,  exulted  in  their 
independence,  and  regarded  with  great  jeal 
ousy  any  scheme  by  which  their  liberty  might 
be  curtailed.  Some  bond  must  of  necessity  be 
devised,  which  would  enable  them  to  present 
front  to  the  danger  which  threatened  all  alike. 
But  the  smaller  States  feared  to  be  swallowed 
up  by  the  larger,  and  the  larger  sometimes 
felt  it  to  be  beneath  their  dignity  to  stand  on 
an  equal  footing  with  the  smaller.  There  was 
as  yet  no  common  sentiment  of  nationality. 
Constitution  framers  never  had  a  harder  task. 
There  was  little  enough  precedent  for  a  great 
federal  league.  The  architects  were  inexpe 
rienced,  those  for  whom  they  worked  were 


884  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

most  suspicious,  the  dangers  and  distractions, 
in  the  midst  of  which  they  must  deliberate, 
were  quite  overwhelming.  The  Constitution 
of  1787  we  feel  to  be  vastly  better,  but  the 
Confederation  that  preceded  it  is,  of  course, 
not  to  be  despised.  The  Constitution  was  the 
child  of  the  Confederation,  its  existence  not 
possible  without  its  parent.  The  Confederation 
was  tentative,  temporary,  and  no  doubt  as  close 
and  effective  as  it  was  possible,  under  the 
circumstances,  to  make  it.  The  intermittent 
debates  had  tediously  proceeded  while  often 
cannon  thundered  north  and  south,  and  the  Con 
gress,  scarcely  less  than  the  commanders,  were 
forced  to  live  in  the  saddle.  One  by  one  the 
greater  leaders  of  1774,  1775,  and  1776  had  re 
tired,  yielding  place  often  to  inferior  men,  while 
they  themselves  served  sometimes  in  the  field, 
sometimes  in  their  home  legislatures,  some 
times  remained  idle  on  their  farms.  At  length, 
of  all  those  who  took  part  in  sketching  the 
original  plan,  Samuel  Adams  was  left  alone. 

The  adoption  of  the  Articles  of  Confedera 
tion,  so  far  from  increasing,  rather  limited  the 
powers  of  Congress.  Sessions  were  to  be  an 
nual,  to  commence  on  the  first  Monday  in 
November ;  the  delegates  were  to  be  appointed 
for  a  year,  but  were  liable  at  any  time  to  be 
recalled  by  the  States  that  had  sent  them.  To 


CLOSING    YEARS.  385 

all  important  points  nine  States  must  consent, 
whereas  before  a  mere  majority  had  been  de 
cisive.  No  State  could  vote  unless  represented 
by  at  least  two  delegates.  As  regards  peace, 
war,  and  foreign  intercourse,  Congress  pos 
sessed  most  of  the  powers  now  exercised  by 
the  federal  government ;  but  it  had  no  means 
of  raising  a  revenue  independent  of  State  ac 
tion,  except  the  resources,  already  exhausted 
and  fallen  into  disrepute,  of  paper  issues  and 
loans.  Congress  could  make  requisitions  on 
the  States,  but  had  no  power  to  enforce  them ; 
the  oftener  they  were  made  the  less  they  were 
heeded. 

It  is  worth  while  to  look  somewhat  particu 
larly  at  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  because 
in  the  framing  of  them  Samuel  Adams  was  so 
largely  concerned,  and  because,  too,  as  will  be 
seen,  they  appeared  to  him,  for  the  most  part, 
quite  satisfactory  as  a  bond  of  union  between 
the  States.  He  reluctantly  gave  them  up  after 
wards  for  the  Constitution,  even  after  their 
weakness  had  become  very  plain,  dreading  of 
all  things  a  disposition  to  centralize.  In  the 
States  the  legislatures  should  be  held  in  strict 
subordination  to  the  town-meetings  ;  and,  again, 
in  the  federation,  there  should  be  no  compro 
mise  of  the  independence  of  the  States.  In 
April  Samuel  Adams  took  leave  of  Congress 

25 


386  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

for  Massachusetts,  from  whose   soil   he  never 
afterwards  departed. 

The  following  correspondence  can  be  appro 
priately  introduced  here,  as  showing  what  men 
in  these  times  were  after  Samuel  Adams's  own 
heart : — 

FROM    MAJ.    GEN.    MACDOUGAL. 

WEST  POINT,  Dec.  Wth,  1781. 

Maj.  Gibbs  of  your  line  is  the  bearer  of  this,  by 
whom  I  have  sent  you  a  plate,  a  specimen  of  the 
material  which  covers  my  board.  It  is  made,  as  the 
set  is,  of  old  unserviceable  camp-kettles. 

TO    MAJ.    GEN.    ALEX.    MACDOUGAL. 

May  13th,  1782. 

The  present  you  sent  me  by  Maj.  Gibbs  gratified 
me  exceedingly.  I  intend  to  transmit  it  to  my  pos 
terity  as  a  specimen  of  Spartan  frugality  in  an 
American  general  officer.  The  citizen  and  the  soldier 
are  called  to  the  exercise  of  self-denial  and  patience, 
and  to  make  the  utmost  exertions  in  support  of  the 
great  cause  we  are  engaged  in. 

S.  A. 

Always,  when  at  home  from  Congress,  as 
the  town  records  of  Boston  show,  he  had  been 
at  the  town-meetings,  serving  as  moderator,  on 
committees  of  correspondence,  safety,  and  in 
spection,  committees  for  obtaining  orators  for 
the  celebration  of  the  anniversary  of  the  Mas- 


CLOSING    YEARS.  387 

sacre,  for  the  reformation  of  the  manners  of 
the  town,  for  the  instruction  of  representatives 
to  address  Lafayette,  to  take  care  of  schools,  etc., 
etc.1  So  it  is  that  this  Antseus  of  democracy 
touches,  as  he  can,  his  mother  earth,  to  draw  in 
strength  for  the  battle  he  is  waging.  Now  that 
he  is  at  home  again  permanently,  he  seems  to 
be  constantly  present  at  the  town-meetings,  act 
ing  as  moderator  whenever  he  is  willing  to  serve 
as  such,  and  intrusted  with  business  great  and 
small.  Once  more,  too,  the  old  man  found  him 
self  under  the  roof  of  the  Old  State  House, 
which  had  seen  so  many  of  his  early  battles 
and  triumphs,  for  he  was  straightway  elected 
to  the  Senate  of  the  State,  and  became  at  once 
its  presiding  officer.  As  such  he  sat  in  that 
famous  chamber  to  the  east,  where  James  Otis 
had  denounced  the  writs  of  assistance,  and 
where  he  himself  had  confronted  Hutchinson 
in  the  stormy  day  of  the  Massacre. 

One  last  scene  of  military  pomp  signalized 
the  close  of  the  war.  In  the  late  fall  of  1782 
the  French  army,  which  had  fought  well  in  the 
field,  and  gained  honor  among  the  people,  hold 
ing  aloof  from  marauding  and  deeds  of  license, 
—  a  fact  which  put  it  often  in  favorable  con 
trast  even  with  the  American  levies,  —  marched 
from  the  Hudson  to  Boston,  to  embark  for  the 

1  Town  records  of  Boston  from  1775  to  1781. 


388  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

West  Indies.  In  uniforms  of  white  and  violet, 
with  the  fleur-de-lis  waving  over  their  ranks,  in 
gaiters,  queues,  and  great  cocked  hats,  such  as 
had  figured  at  Fontenoy  and  in  the  wars  of 
Frederick,  the  long  column  worked  its  way 
through  the  interior  villages  to  the  seaboard. 
The  Baron  Viome'ml,  who  had  done  brilliantly 
at  Yorktown,  was  their  commander.  Boston 
town-meeting  did  all  honor  to  their  guests,  for 
the  Frenchmen  remained  some  days  while  the 
transports  were  preparing.  Samuel  Adams  was 
the  prominent  figure  in  the  demonstrations. 

Efforts  having  been  made  to  restore  the 
refugee  Tories  to  their  original  rights,  Adams, 
appointed  by  the  town  of  Boston,  instructed 
the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  Inspection, 
and  Safety,  in  terms  which  show  that  his  im 
placability  was  undiminished.  The  committee 
are  directed  to  oppose  "  to  the  utmost  of  their 
power  every  enemy  to  the  just  rights  and  liber 
ties  of  mankind ;  after  so  wicked  a  conspiracy 
against  these  rights  and  liberties  by  certain 
ingrates,  most  of  them  natives  of  these  States, 
and  who  have  been  refugees  and  declared  trai 
tors  to  their  country,  it  is  the  opinion  of  this 
town  that  they  ought  never  to  be  suffered  to 
return,  but  excluded  from  having  lot  or  place 
among  us."  However  harsh  this  expression 
may  appear,  no  fair  student  of  the  history  of 


CLOSING    YEARS.  389 

those  days  will  deny  the  reasonableness  of  the 
judgment.  There  was  every  motive  for  pru 
dence  as  to  the  admission  of  British  emissa 
ries  and  men  of  Tory  sentiments.  Whatever 
their  professions,  they  could  scarcely  fail  to 
treat  with  contempt  the  new  order  of  things, 
and  try  secretly  to  undermine  it.  Efforts  were 
made  in  1784  and  1785  to  exchange  the  Boston 
town-meeting  for  a  city  organization,  which, 
it  was  felt,  would  be  much  more  convenient  for 
managing  the  affairs  of  so  large  a  population. 
The  people,  however,  could  not  bring  them 
selves  .to  give  up  the  venerable  system  which 
had  accomplished  such  memorable  results. 
Samuel  Adams  took  a  leading  part  in  the  dis 
cussions,  and  was  chairman  of  the  important 
committee  to  whom  was  left  the  duty  of  stat 
ing  the  "  defects  of  the  town  constitution." 
In  this  capacity  he  reported  to  the  town  that 
"  there  were  no  defects,"  l  and  in  his  time  there 
was  no  change. 

In  1786  came  the  formidable  popular  out 
break  known  as  Shays's  Rebellion.  The  weight 
of  federal  and  state  taxes,  combined  with  the 
pressure  of  a  vast  private  indebtedness,  well- 
nigh  crushed  the  people.  Circumstances  made 
proper  the  most  rigid  economy,  but  the  vicious 
spirit  of  extravagance  prevailed.  The  courts, 
1  Town  records,  November  9,  1785. 


390  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

whose  agency  had  been  invoked  for  the  collec 
tion  of  the  debts,  were  declared  in  the  western 
counties  to  be  engines  of  destruction.  Other 
grievances,  sometimes  partly  reasonable,  some 
times  absurd,  were  the  cost  of  litigation,  the 
inordinate  salaries  of  many  public  officers,  and 
the  existence  of  the  Senate  in  the  state  con 
stitution,  which  was  condemned  as  needless  and 
aristocratic.  At  conventions  of  the  people, 
sometimes  imposing  through  numbers,  dema 
gogues  dwelt  in  exaggerated  terms  upon  these 
topics,  and,  in  no  secret  way,  violence  was 
counseled  against  the  laws  of  the  land.  The 
means  employed,  indeed,  were  the  same  used 
against  British  authority,  which  had  resulted  in 
the  Revolution.  Those  precedents,  in  that  time 
recent,  were  in  the  minds  of  the  agitators ;  and 
it  could  be  plausibly  urged  that  the  men  now 
in  authority  under  the  new  order  could  not 
consistently  find  fault  with  this  application  of 
their  own  machinery,  which  the  people  were 
setting  at  work  once  more  to  right  great  wrongs 
by  which  they  felt  themselves  oppressed.  Sam 
uel  Adams  and  those  who  believed  with  him 
certainly  had  reason  to  be  much  embarrassed 
by  the  situation.  There  is  nevertheless  no  evi 
dence  that  the  old  democrat  hesitated  for  a 
moment  as  to  his  course.  While  the  public 
suffering  could  not  be  doubted,  it  was  the  re- 


CLOSING    YEARS.  391 

suit  of  a  terrible  war  and  could  not  be  helped. 
Whatever  injustice  existed  could  be  reached 
and  remedied  by  constitutional  means,  without 
an  overturn,  —  a  thing  which  could  not  at  all 
be  said  of  the  old  oppressions.  He  wrote  to 
John  Adams  :  — 

"Now  that  we  have  regular  and  constitutional 
governments,  popular  committees  and  county  conven 
tions  are  not  only  useless  but  dangerous.  They 
served  an  excellent  purpose,  and  were  highly  neces 
sary  when  they  were  set  up,  and  I  shall  not  repent 
the  small  share  I  then  took  in  them." 

As  the  danger  thickened,  Samuel  Adams 
was  one  of  those  who  declared  for  the  sternest 
measures,  to  maintain  the  constitution  and  the 
laws.  Once  more  at  the  head  of  Boston  town- 
meeting,  which  he  guided  as  moderator,  and 
whose  spokesman  he,  as  usual,  became,  as  first 
on  the  committee  appointed  to  draft  an  ad 
dress,  he  strengthened  the  hands  of  his  old 
fellow- fighter,  the  fearless,  energetic  Bowdoin, 
then  governor,  who  was  ready  to  do  his  full 
duty.  The  entire  state  militia  was  called  out, 
and  was  well  commanded,  for  fortunately  the 
veteran  officers  of  the  Revolution  stood  stoutly 
on  the  side  of  law  and  order. 

The  gossiping  William  Sullivan  gives  a  good 
picture  of  the  noble  Bowdoin,  standing  on  the 


392  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

steps  of  the  court-house  at  Cambridge  while 
the  troops  of  General  John  Brooks  pass  by  in 
review.  He  was  fifty-eight  years  old,  tall  and 
dignified,  dressed  in  a  gray  wig,  cocked  hat, 
white  broadcloth  coat  and  waistcoat,  red  small 
clothes,  and  black  silk  stockings.  His  air  and 
manner  were  quietly  grave,  his  features  rather 
small  for  a  man  of  his  size,  his  colorless  face 
giving  evidence  of  the  delicate  health  which 
no  doubt  had  prevented  him  from  taking  a 
stand  among  the  first  of  the  patriots.  Blood 
was  shed  at  Springfield,  and  at  length  in  mid 
winter  came  the  famous  march  of  General  Lin 
coln  to  Petersham,  thirty  miles  in  one  night 
through  a  driving  snow-storm,  which  scattered 
the  main  power  of  the  insurgents,  and  ended 
the  danger. 

The  attitude  in  which  Samuel  Adams  stood 
to  the  Federal  constitution  was  much  misrep 
resented  during  his  lifetime,  and  a  misunder 
standing  as  regards  it  has  clouded  his  fame  to 
the  present  day.  He  disliked  to  confer  great 
powers,  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen,  on  a  body 
far  removed  from  its  constituents.  According 
to  his  town-meeting  ideas  there  should  always 
be  as  few  removes  as  possible  of  the  power 
from  the  people.  In  1785  Samuel  Adams  writes 
to  Elbridge  Gerry,  advising  against  "  a  general 


CLOSING    YEARS.  393 

revision  of  the  confederation,"  which  seems  to 
him  dangerous  and  unnecessary,  and  he  appears 
to  strike  hands  with  Gerry  and  his  colleague 
King,  the  representatives  from  Massachusetts, 
to  embarrass  those  who  favor  a  stronger  cen 
tral  government.1  At  the  same  time,  however, 
he  declares  :  "  It  would  have  been  better  to 
have  fallen  in  the  struggle  than  now  to  become 
a  contemptible  nation,"  and  he  seems  to  be  per 
suaded  that  there  must  be  in  some  way  a  strong, 
effective  union.  His  declarations  are  perhaps 
not  altogether  consistent,  and  imply  some  un 
certainty. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  convention  assem 
bled  in  Massachusetts  for  the  ratification  or 
rejection  of  the  constitution,  Samuel  Adams 
underwent  a  severe  affliction  in  the  death  of 
his  son,  who,  with  his  constitution  broken  by 
the  hardships  of  a  surgeon's  life  during  the 
war,  died  at  thirty-seven.  For  two  weeks  de 
bates  went  forward  without  result,  Mr.  Adams 
sitting  silent,  though  it  should  be  mentioned 
that  at  the  beginning,  no  doubt  with  the  idea 
of  securing  harmony,  he  made  a  motion  quite 
similar  to  that  which  preceded  the  delibera 
tions  at  Philadelphia  in  1774,  and  which  was 
regarded  as  such  a  master-stroke.  It  was  that 
the  ministers  of  the  town  in  turn,  without  re- 
1  Bancroft,  Hist,  of  Constit.  i.  199. 


394  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

gard  to  sect,  should  be  invited  to   open   the 
meetings  with  prayer. 

An  effort  was  made  to  bring  the  convention 
to  an  abandonment  of  the  consideration  of  the 
instrument  by  paragraphs,  and  induce  it  to  vote 
upon  the  document  as  a  whole,  which  without 
doubt  would  have  resulted  in  its  rejection. 
This  Samuel  Adams  opposed  in  a  speech  still 
extant.  He  declared  that  he  had  difficulties 
and  doubts  as  regards  the  proposed  constitu 
tion,  as  had  others,  and  he  desired  to  have  a 
full  investigation  instead  of  deciding  the  mat 
ter  in  a  hurry.  This  prevailed,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  following  week  the  shrewd  man 
agers  who  favored  the  acceptance  of  the  form 
submitted  devised  a  way  to  secure  victory. 
Nine  amendments  were  prepared,  famous  as 
the  "  conciliatory  propositions,"  the  story  of 
which  is  told  as  follows  by  Colonel  Joseph 
May : 1  — 

"  Adams  and  Hancock  [then  governor]  were  both 
members  of  the  convention  in  Massachusetts,  and  the 
two  most  powerful  men  in  the  State.  Adams  ques 
tioned  the  policy  of  the  adoption  without  amend 
ments,  and  let  men  know  his  reasons  ;  but  Hancock 
was  in  great  trouble,  and,  as  usual  on  such  occasions, 
he  had,  or  affected  to  have,  the  gout,  and  remained  at 
home,  wrapped  up  in  flannel.  The  friends  of  the  con- 
1  Wells,  iii.  258. 


CLOSING    YEARS.  395 

stitution  gathered  about  him,  flattered  his  vanity,  told 
him  the  salvation  of  the  nation  rested  with  him:  if 
the  constitution  was  not  accepted,  we  should  be  a 
ruined  nation  ;  if  he  said  accept  it,  Massachusetts  and 
the  nation  would  obey.  They  persuaded  him  to  that 
opinion.  It  was  reported  abroad  that  he  had  made 
up  his  mind,  and  had  recovered  from  his  illness  so  far 
that,  on  a  certain  day,  he  would  appear  again  in  the 
convention,  and  would  make  a  speech  which  would 
probably  be  in  favor  of  adopting  the  constitution. 
Theophilus  Parsons,  afterwards  the  famous  judge,  was 
the  most  active  in  procuring  this  result.  He  wrote  a 
speech  for  Hancock  to  read  in  the  convention. 

"  So  when  the  day  arrived,  Mr.  Hancock  was 
helped  out  of  his  house  into  his  coach,  and  driven 
down  to  the  place  where  the  convention  was  held,  — 
Federal  Street,  —  and  thence  carried  into  the  conven 
tion  by  several  young  gentlemen,  who  were  friends 
of  the  family  and  in  the  secret.  He  rose  in  his  place 
and  apologized  for  his  absence,  for  his  feebleness,  and 
declared  that  nothing  but  the  greatness  of  the  emer 
gency  would  have  brought  him  from  his  bed  of  sick 
ness  ;  but  duty  to  his  country  prevailed  over  consider 
ations  of  health.  He  hoped  they  would  pardon  him 
for  reading  a  speech  which  he  had  carefully  prepared, 
not  being  well  enough  to  make  it  in  any  other  man 
ner.  Then  he  read  the  speech  which  Parsons  had 
written  for  him,  and  from  Parsons's  manuscript,  and 
sat  down.  One  of  his  friends  took  the  manuscript 
hastily  from  him,  afraid  that  the  looker-on  might  see 
that  it  was  not  in  Hancock's  hand,  but  Parsons's." 


396  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Colonel  May  next  relates  the  course  adopted 
to  secure  the  cooperation  of  Adams  :  — 

"  The  same  means  were  undertaken  to  influence 
Mr.  Adams.  It  was  not,  however,  so  easy.  They 
had  done  what  they  could  with  experiment :  flattery 
would  have  no  effect  upon  him ;  but  they  knew  two 
things,  —  first,  that  he  had  great  confidence  in  the 
democratic  instincts  of  the  people  ;  and  second,  that 
he  was  a  modest  man,  and  sometimes  doubted  his  own 
judgment  when  it  differed  from  the  democratic  in 
stincts  aforesaid.  So  they  induced  some  of  the  lead 
ing  mechanics  of  Boston  to  hold  a  meeting  at  the 
'  Green  Dragon  Inn  '  in  Union  Street,  their  private 
gathering-place,  and  pass  resolutions  in  favor  of  the 
constitution,  and  send  a  committee  to  present  them 
to  him.  He  was  surprised  at  the  news  of  the  meet 
ing,  and  the  nature  of  the  resolutions,  and  asked  who 
was  there.  They  were  just  the  men,  or  the  class  of 
men,  whom  he  confided  in.  He  inquired  why  they 
had  not  called  him  to  attend  the  meeting.  '  Oh,  we 
wanted  the  voice  of  the  people/  was  the  answer. 
Mr.  Adams  was  still  more  surprised,  and,  after  long 
consideration,  concluded  to  accept  the  constitution 
with  the  amendments." 

Daniel  Webster  gave  in  1833  a  graphic  ac 
count  of  the  same  incident,  in  which  Paul  Re 
vere,  whose  attributes,  as  he  goes  on  in  life, 
become  rather  those  of  Vulcan  than  Mercury, 
is  made  to  play  the  leading  part :  — 

"  He  received  the  resolutions  from  the  hands  of 


CLOSING    YEARS.  397 

Paul  Revere,  a  brass-founder  by  occupation,  a  man  of 
sense  and  character  and  of  high  public  spirit,  whom 
the  mechanics  of  Boston  ought  never  to  forget. 
'  How  many  mechanics,'  said  Mr.  Adams,  '  were  at 
the  Green  Dragon  when  the  resolutions  were  passed?' 
'  More,  sir,'  was  the  reply,  '  than  the  Green  Dragon 
could  hold.'  'And  where  were  the  rest,  Mr.  Re 
vere  ? '  'In  the  streets,  sir.'  *  And  how  many  were 
in  the  streets  ?  '  '  More,  sir,  than  there  are  stars  in 
the  sky.' " 

In  the  "  conciliatory  propositions  "  all  pow 
ers  not  expressly  delegated  to  Congress  were 
reserved  to  the  several  States  ;  the  basis  of  rep 
resentation  was  altered  ;  the  powers  of  taxation 
and  the  granting  of  commercial  monopolies  by 
Congress  were  restricted;  grand  jury  indict 
ments  in  capital  trials  were  provided  for ;  the 
jurisdiction  of  federal  courts  in  cases  between 
the  citizens  of  different  states  was  limited,  and 
the  right  of  trial  by  jury  was  given  in  such 
cases.  Upon  the  introduction  of  these  amend 
ments,  Mr.  Adams  urged  the  ratification  of  the 
constitution,  upon  the  understanding  that  they 
were  to  be  recommended.  Still  another  speech 
followed,  in  which  he  became  a  strong  advocate 
of  the  instrument,  and  dwelt  upon  the  amend 
ments  one  by  one  ;  and  it  is  a  curious  feature 
of  the  speech  that,  though  he  well  knew  where 
the  amendments  really  came  from,  yet  with 


398  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

some  of  his  old-time  cunning  his  evident  desire 
is  to  encourage  the  general  impression  that 
Hancock  originated  them.  It  was  a  matter  of 
great  importance  that  the  popular  governor 
should  be  supposed  to  have  presented  his  own 
views ;  and  the  admiring  Mr.  Wells,  uncon 
scious,  as  we  have  found  him  before,  of  any  de 
vious  trickery,  takes  pains  to  show  how  Adams 
strove  hard  to  produce  in  his  hearers  a  false 
impression.  It  is  not  edifying,  but  it  is  cer 
tainly  droll,  to  see  how  the  young  foxes  suc 
cessfully  manage  to  outwit  the  old  fox,  who 
then,  all  unconscious  that  he  has  himself  been 
a  victim,  goes  on  with  his  wily  expedient  to 
inveigle  the  convention  into  doing  right. 

The  debate  proceeded,  the  eloquence  of 
Fisher  Ames  making  a  powerful  impression  in 
favor  of  the  constitution.  Massachusetts  had 
instructed  her  delegates  to  insist  on  an  annual 
election  of  congressmen;  Samuel  Adams,  al 
ways  believing  that  power  delegated  should 
return  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  people,  from 
whom  alone  it  could  come,  and  willing,  no  doubt, 
to  subscribe  to  Jefferson's  phrase :  "  Where 
annual  election  ends,  tyranny  begins,"  asked 
why  congressmen  were  to  be  chosen  for  two 
years.  Caleb  Strong  explained  that  it  was  a 
necessary  compromise,  at  which  Adams  an 
swered,  "  I  am  satisfied."  The  concession 


CLOSING    YEARS.  399 

seemed  so  important  to  the  convention  that 
he  was  asked  to  repeat  it,  which  he  did. 
At  length  he  suggested  certain  other  amend 
ments.  These  were  rejected  by  the  conven 
tion,  though  afterward  accepted  by  the  nation. 
They  now  form  the  1st,  2d,  3d,  and  4th  arti 
cles  in  amendment  ;  the  clauses  of  the  concilia 
tory  propositions  were  also  in  part  adopted  as 
amendments. 

We  need  not  follow  more  particularly  the 
episodes  of  the  convention,  which  at  last  ratified 
the  constitution  by  a  narrow  majority,  the  vote 
standing  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven  to  one 
hundred  and  sixty-eight.  Probably  there  were 
few  men  in  the  convention,  as  there  were  few 
in  the  country,  who  did  not  feel  that  there  were 
defects  in  the  form  proposed.  The  only  real 
difference  apparently  between  Samuel  Adams 
and  those  who  were  held  to  be  special  advo 
cates  of  the  constitution  was,  that  while  all  felt 
there  were  defects,  the  latter  wished  to  accept 
the  instrument  at  once  and  unconditionally,  and 
to  run  the  risk  of  future  amendments ;  whereas 
Mr.  Adams  felt  that  the  ratification  should  be 
accompanied  by  a  recommendation  of  amend 
ments.  The  first  conciliatory  proposition  in 
particular,  expressly  reserving  to  the  States  the 
rights  not  delegated  to  the  federal  government, 
Adams  regarded  as  "a  summary  of  a  bill  of 


400  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

rights,"  and  therefore  of  great  importance.  Jef 
ferson  also  declared  that  the  proposition  sup 
plied  the  vital  omission  of  a  bill  of  rights,  which 
was  what  "  the  people  were  entitled  to  against 
every  government  on  earth,  general  or  particu 
lar,  and  what  no  just  government  should  refuse 
or  rest  on  inference."  Bancroft  is  careful  to 
point  out  that  Adams  by  no  means  makes  the 
acceptance  of  the  amendments  a  condition  of 
ratification,  but  would  have  them  simply  recom 
mended  at  the  same  time  with  the  ratification. 

Letters  of  Mr.  Adams  soon  after  this  express 
very  earnestly  his  desire  to  have  the  amend- 
^/ments  adopted.  He  wished  "to  see  a  line 
drawn  as  clearly  as  may  be  between  the  federal 
powers  vested  in  Congress  and  the  distinct  sov 
ereignty  of  the  several  States,  upon  which  the 
private  and  personal  rights  of  the  citizens  de 
pend."  His  fear  was  lest  "the  constitution,  in 
the  administration  of  it,  would  gradually,  but 
swiftly  and  imperceptibly,  run  into  a  consoli 
dated  government,  pervading  and  legislating 
through  all  the  States  ;  not  for  federal  purposes 
only,  as  it  professes,  but  in  all  cases  whatso 
ever.  .  .  .  Should  a  strong  Federalist  see  what 
has  now  dropped  from  my  pen,  he  would  say 
that  I  am  an  c  Anti-Fed,' an  amendment  mon 
ger,  etc."  *  Mr.  Bancroft  sums  up  well  Samuel 
i  To  K.  H.  Lee,  July  14,  1789,  from  the  autograph. 


CLOSING   YEARS.  401 

Adains's  position  when  he  speaks  of  "  the  error 
that  many  have  made  in  saying  that  he  was  at 
first  opposed  to  the  constitution.  He  never  was 
opposed  to  the  constitution ;  he  only  waited  to 
make  up  his  mind."  l  His  contemporaries  in 
deed  declared  that  his  influence  saved  the 
constitution  in  Massachusetts.  His  position  is 
quite  different  from  that  not  only  of  Patrick 
Henry,  but  also  from  that  of  R.  H.  Lee  and 
Elbridge  Gerry,  who  opposed  with  all  their 
power. 

As  the  year  1788  drew  to  a  close,  the  Federal 
constitution  being  now  in  force,  though  two 
States  still  withheld  their  assent,  an  effort  was 
made  to  send  Samuel  Adams  again  to  Congress. 
In  the  newspapers  of  the  time  the  most  earnest 
tributes  are  paid  to  him.  He  is  set  side  by 
side  with  Washington.  Says  the  "  Independent 
Chronicle "  of  December,  1788  :  "  While  we 
are  careful  to  introduce  to  our  Federal  legisla 
ture  the  American  Fabius,  let  us  not  be  un 
mindful  of  the  American  Cato."  "  America," 
says  another,  "  in  her  darkest  periods  ever  found 
him  forward  and  near  the  helm,  and  for  her 
sake  he  with  cheerfulness  seven  years  served 
her  with  a  halter  round  his  neck.  Naked  he 
went  into  her  employ,  and  naked  he  came  out 

1  From  a  private  letter  to  the  writer. 
26 


402  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

of  it."  Says  another  :  "  It  has  been  said,  he  is 
old  and  anti-federal.  His  age  and  experience 
are  the  very  qualifications  you  want.  His  in 
fluence  caused  the  constitution  to  be  adopted  in 
this  State." 

Mr.  Adams,  however,  lost  the  election,  which 
was  won  by  Fisher  Ames,  a  young  lawyer  of 
thirty-one,  who  by  his  eloquence  in  the  consti 
tutional  convention  had  raised  to  the  highest 
a  reputation,  before  becoming  brilliant.  The 
virulence  of  party  spirit  was  excessive.  To 
have  advocated  amendments  to  the  consti 
tution,  however  reasonable  and  proper,  was 
enough  to  condemn  the  most  respected  man,  as 
far  as  the  Federalists  were  concerned.  There 
was  danger  even  from  other  weapons  than 
sharp  tongues  and  pens.  A  note  is  still  pre 
served,  written  rudely  on  coarse  paper,  with 
the  words  blurred  by  the  moisture  of  the  wet 
grass  of  Samuel  Adams's  garden,  into  which 
it  had  been  thrown,  in  which  he  is  warned 
against  assassination.  In  April  following,  how 
ever,  Adams  became  lieutenant-governor,  Han 
cock  being  governor.  He  had  already  been 
in  Hancock's  Council,  and  the  reconciliation 
had  now  become  cordial.  Adams,  indeed,  had 
always  been  magnanimous.  In  Hancock's  case, 
the  lapse  of  years  and  increasing  infirmities 
mitigated  animosities,  and  gave  opportunity  to 


CLOSING    YEARS.  403 

the  better  nature  which  he  certainly  had. 
Their  supporters,  rejoicing  to  see  the  old  pa 
triots  once  more  friends  and  again  in  the  fore 
ground  together,  printed  the  ticket  in  letters 
of  gold. 

The  following  year  the  venerable  pair  were 
again  chosen,  and  in  a  speech  to  the  legislature, 
made  by  Adams  upon  entering  on  his  second 
term  of  office,  one  finds  expressions  so  cool 
and  wise  concerning  the  great  constitutional 
question,  that  it  is  hard  to  see  how  even  the 
smoke  of  partisan  battle  could  have  blinded 
men  to  their  justice  :  — 

"  I  shall  presently  be  called  upon  by  you,  sir,  as  it 
is  enjoined  by  the  constitution,  to  make  a  declara 
tion  upon  oath,  (and  shall  do  it  with  cheerfulness,  be 
cause  the  injunction  accords  with  my  own  judgment 
and  conscience,)  that  the  commonwealth  of  Massachu 
setts  is,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  a  free,  sovereign,  and 
independent  State.  I  shall  also  be  called  upon  to  make 
another  declaration,  with  the  same  solemnity,  to  sup 
port  the  constitution  of  the  United  States.  I  see  the 
consistency  of  this,  for  it  cannot  have  been  intended 
but  that  these  constitutions  should  mutually  aid  and 
support  'each  other.  It  is  my  humble  opinion  that, 
while  the  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  maintains 
her  own  just  authority,  weight,  and  dignity,  she  will 
be  among  the  firmest  pillars  of  the  federal  Union. 

"May  the  administration  of  the  federal  govern 
ment,  and  those  of  the  several  States  in  the  Union, 


404  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

be  guided  by  the  unerring  finger  of  heaven  !  Each 
of  them  and  all  of  them  united  will  then,  if  the  peo 
ple  are  wise,  be  as  prosperous  as  the  wisdom  of  hu 
man  institutions  and  the  circumstances  of  human 
society  will  admit." 

A  conflict  which  seems  to  have  aroused  the 
old  energy  of  Adams  more  than  any  other  that 
occurred  during  his  declining  years  was  that  as 
to  whether  theatrical  representations  should  be 
allowed  in  Boston.  In  1790  the  legislature  was 
petitioned  for  authority  to  open  a  theatre  in 
Boston,  which  was  promptly  refused.  In  the 
following  year  a  town-meeting  instructed  the 
representatives  to  obtain,  if  possible,  a  repeal 
of  the  prohibitory  act.  It  was  carried,  over 
the  protest  of  Samuel  Adams  and  the  old-fash 
ioned  citizens.  When  Harrison  Gray  Otis 
made  a  vigorous  demonstration  on  the  same 
side,  Samuel  Adams  "  thanked  God  that  there 
was  one  young  man  willing  to  step  forth  in  the 
good  old  cause  of  morality  and  religion."  He 
himself  fought  the  Philistines  on  the  floor  of 
Faneuil  Hall  until  his  weak  voice  was  drowned 
in  roars  of  disapproval.  The  prohibitory  act 
was  not  repealed,  but  a  theatre  was  opened  in 
spite  of  it,  upon  which  Hancock  vindicated  the 
law  bv  causing  the  whole  company  to  be  ar 
rested  on  the  stage.  A  new  application  from 
the  town  for  a  repeal  of  the  act  brought  the 


CLOSING    YEARS.  405 

legislature  to  compliance.  Samuel  Adams  had 
now  become  governor,  for  we  are  anticipating 
somewhat.  His  theory  was  that  the  governor 
was  simply  an  executive  officer,  whose  only 
proper  function  was  to  carry  out  the  popular 
will  as  expressed  in  the  legislative  enactments. 
He  says  in  one  of  his  inaugurals  :  "  It  is  yours, 
fellow-citizens,  to  legislate,  and  mine  only  to 
revise  your  bills  under  limited  and  qualified 
powers ;  and  I  rejoice  that  they  are  thus  lim 
ited.  These  are  features  which  belong  to  a 
free  government  alone.1'  But  desperate  circum 
stances  demanded  desperate  expedients.  His 
dear  Boston,  so  far  from  becoming  the  u  Chris 
tian  Sparta  "  of  his  dreams,  was  fast  going  to 
the  dogs  of  depravity.  Under  the  circumstances 
consistency  was  a  jewel  not  at  all  too  precious 
to  be  sacrificed.  He  set  himself  stubbornly 
against  the  popular  will  and  vetoed  the  repeal. 
So  long  as  he  sat  in  the  chair  of  the  chief  mag 
istrate  the  prohibitory  law  remained  on  the 
statute  books,  though  the  scandalous  play-ac 
tors  dodged  through  their  performances  after 
a  fashion  in  spite  of  the  constables,  to  the 
delight  of  the  graceless  generation  which  had 
come  into  the  places  of  the  fathers. 

Though  his  natural  force  was  suffering  some 
abatement,  Adams  could  yet  defend  with  power 
still  great  the  old,  oft-threatened  positions,  in 


406  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

front  of  which,  all  his  life,  he  had  fought  so 
faithful  a  battle.  John  Adams  returned  from 
Europe  in  1788,  after  an  absence  of  nine  years. 
In  the  earlier  time  the  kinsmen  had  been  of  one 
mind,  but  the  younger  had  imbibed  aristocratic 
notions  during  his  life  in  courts,  which  divided 
him  from  his  friend.  A  correspondence  be 
tween  John  Adams,  then  vice-president  of  the 
United  States,  and  Samuel  Adams,  then  lieu 
tenant-governor  of  Massachusetts,  which,  al 
though  courteous,  illustrates  the  difference  of 
their  ideas,  was  a  notable  controversy  of  the 
time.  Of  the  democratic  ideas  Jefferson  be 
came  the  leading  exponent.  Although  at  pres 
ent  not  dominant,  these  were  soon  to  become 
the  prevailing  ideas  of  America.  Of  the  hold 
ers  of  these,  "Republicans,"  as  they  were  at 
first  called,  Samuel  Adams  was  recognized  as 
the  head  in  Massachusetts. 

With  the  approach  of  the  fall  in  1793,  Han 
cock's  infirmities  perceptibly  increased,  and  his 
end  was  plainly  near.  The  two  men  had  come 
to  stand  once  more  hand  in  hand,  as  in  the 
bygone  days,  when  Gage  had  outlawed  them 
together,  and  they  had  fled  before  the  regulars 
with  the  volleys  of  Lexington  filling  the  April 
morning.  What  though  Hancock  had  trimmed 
and  played  the  fool  ?  Again  and  again  he  had 
risked  wealth  and  life,  as  he  stood  chivalrously 


CLOSING    YEARS.  407 

in  the  thick  of  peril.  What  though  he  had  in 
sulted  and  calumniated  his  old  associate  ?  His 
heart  had  turned  tenderly  to  him  once  more  in 
old  age,  and  Samuel  Adams,  as  tenderly,  held 
him  once  more  in  a  brotherly  clasp.  Here  is 
his  last  letter  to  Hancock  : 1  — 

BOSTON,  Sept.  3d,  1793. 

MY  VERY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  received  your  letter  on 
Saturday  evening  last.  It  cheered  the  spirit  and 
caused  the  blood  to  thrill  through  the  veins  of  an 
old  man.  I  was  sorry  for  the  injunction  you  laid  me 
under.  I  hope  you  will  relax  it,  and  give  me  leave 
to  keep  it.  I  shall  then  read  it  often,  and  when  I 
leave  it,  it  will  be  read  to  your  honor  after  you  and  I 
shall  be  laid  in  the  dust.  I  am  rejoiced  to  discover 
by  it  that  your  mind  is  firm  and  your  speech  good. 
Shall  I  venture  to  conjure  you,  as  your  friend,  strictly 
to  comply  with  the  advice  of  your  physicians  ?  I 
have  seen  Drs.  Jarvis  and  Warren ;  they  tell  me  that 
they  were  all  united  in  opinion,  and  say  that  they  are 
in  hopes,  under  Providence,  to  bring  you  to  such  a 
state  of  health  as  to  enable  you  to  perform  the  duties 
of  a  station  with  which  the  people  have  honored  you, 
which  I  pray  God  you  may  continue  in  many  years 
after  I  am  no  more  here.  Mrs.  Adams  joins  me  in 
best  regards  to  you  and  Madam. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

S.  ADAMS. 
1  From  the  autograph. 


408  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Hancock  died  at  last  on  the  8th  of  October. 
He  was  honored  with  a  most  solemn  funeral, 
and  Samuel  Adams  followed  the  coffin  as  chief 
mourner.  The  strength  of  the  septuagenarian 
failed  to  sustain  him  under  the  emotions  that 
overwhelmed  him.  He  withdrew  from  his  place 
as  the  train  wound  past  the  Old  State  House, 
and  it  went  on  to  the  Granary  Burying  Ground 
without  the  man  of  the  gray  head  and  the 
trembling  hands,  who  through  Hancock's  death 
had  become  chief  magistrate  of  Massachusetts. 

On  January  17,  1794,  Samuel  Adams  de 
livered  his  first  speech,  as  governor,  to  the 
Senate  and  House.  He  thought  it  worth  while 
to  recapitulate  to  some  extent  the  ultimate 
grounds  of  freedom  which  he  had  so  often  as 
serted,  and  it  was  perhaps  well,  in  the  wide 
spread  doubt  that  had  come  to  exist  as  to  the 
expediency  of  trusting  government  to  the  hands 
of  the  people. 

In  1794,  1795,  and  1796  Mr.  Adams  was 
elected  governor  by  heavy  majorities,  although 
the  Federalists  made  efforts  to  defeat  him.  In 
his  addresses  to  the  two  houses  he  occupied 
the  reasonable  mean  between  the  extreme  Fed 
eralists  and  the  extreme  Republicans,  insisting 
upon  the  necessity  of  a  just  concession  of  power 
to  the  Union,  while  urging  at  the  same  time 
a  maintenance  of  the  rights  of  the  States.  He 


CLOSING   TEARS.  409 

approved  thoroughly  the  policy  of  Washington 
as  regards  European  entanglements,  acknowl 
edging  the  wisdom  of  his  proclamation  of  neu 
trality,  issued  soon  after  the  arrival  of  Citizen 
Genet. 

The  Jay  treaty  of  1796,  warmly  favored  by 
Hamilton  and  Fisher  Ames,  Adams  opposed,  in 
company  with  Madison,  Gallatin,  and  Brock- 
hoist  Livingston,  and  made  no  effort  to  stop 
the  expressions  of  popular  disapproval  which, 
in  Boston,  became  riotous.  His  position  drew 
down  upon  him  unmeasured  wrath  from  the 
Federalists,  though  few  at  the  present  time 
will  maintain  that  the  provisions  of  that  treaty 
were  wise. 

As  the  year  1797  opened,  Samuel  Adams, 
now  seventy-five,  gave  notice,  in  a  speech  to  the 
legislature,  of  his  retirement  from  public  life. 
That  he  had  honor  in  this  hour  elsewhere  than 
at  home  had  been  shown  in  the  presidential 
election  which  had  just  taken  place,  when,  in 
the  electoral  college,  Virginia  had  thrown  for 
Thomas  Jefferson  twenty  votes,  and  for  Samuel 
Adams  fifteen.  Both  houses  of  the  Massachu 
setts  General  Court  addressed  him  in  terms  of 
great  respect,  and  in  May  the  toiLworn  servant 
of  the  people  laid  down  his  responsibilities. 

His  appearance  in  age  is  thus  described  by 
Wells :  — 


410  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

"  He  always  walked  with  his  family  to  and  from 
church,  until  his  failing  strength  prevented.  His 
stature  was  a  little  above  the  medium  height.  He  wore 
a  tie-wig,  cocked  hat,  buckled  shoes,  knee-breeches, 
and  a  red  cloak,  and  held  himself  very  erect,  with  the 
ease  and  address  of  a  polite  gentleman.  On  stopping 
to  speak  with  any  person  in  the  street  his  salutation 
was  formal  yet  cordial.  His  gestures  were  animated, 
and  in  conversation  there  was  a  slight  tremulous  mo 
tion  of  the  head.  He  never  wore  glasses  in  public, 
except  when  engaged  in  his  official  duties  at  the  State 
House.  His  complexion  was  florid  and  his  eyes  dark 
blue.  The  eyebrows  were  heavy,  almost  to  bushiness, 
and  contrasted  remarkably  with  the  clear  forehead, 
which,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  had  but  few  wrinkles. 
The  face  had  a  benignant,  but  careworn  expression, 
blended  with  a  native  dignity  (some  have  said  maj 
esty)  of  countenance,  which  never  failed  to  impress 
strangers." 

Henceforth  he  lived  in  his  house  in  Winter 
Street  (the  Purchase  Street  home  he  had  been 
forced  to  resign),  his  wife  at  his  side,  cared 
for  by  his  daughter  and  her  children.  In  cap 
and  gown  he  walked  in  his  garden  or  sat  in  the 
door- way.  As  age  grew  upon  him  his  nearer 
life  receded,  and  the  great  figures  and  deeds  of 
the  Revolution  were  oftener  in  his  thoughts. 
Once  more  he  walked  with  Otis  and  Warren 
and  Quincy ;  once  more,  in  mind,  he  rallied 
into  closest  battle-order  the  scattered  Massa- 


CLOSING    YEARS.  411 

chusetts  towns,  put  to  flight,  unweaponed,  the 
Fourteenth  and  Twenty-ninth  regiments,  and 
barred  on*-  Gap-e  in  the  great  crisis  of  the  throe 
when  "  the  child  Independer0^  was  born."  In 
mixed  companies,  and  among  strangers,  he  was 
reserved  and  silent;  among  friends  he  was  com 
panionable,  abounding  in  anecdote,  and  keenly 
alive  to  wit.  His  grandchildren  read  to  him,  or 
were  his  amanuenses.  To  the  last  he  was  in 
terested  in  the  common  schools.  In  1795,  while 
rejoicing  over  the  establishment  of  academies, 
he  had,  as  governor,  expressed  to  the  legisla 
ture  the  fear  that  a  large  increase  of  these 
institutions  might  lessen  "the  ancient  and  ben 
eficial  mode  of  education  in  grammar  schools," 
whose  peculiar  advantage  is  "that  the  poor  and 
the  rich  may  derive  equal  benefit  from  them, 
while  none,  excepting  the  more  wealthy,  gen 
erally  speaking,  can  avail  themselves  of  the 
benefits  of  the  academies."  His  form  now  was 
familiar  in  the  school-rooms,  and  he  was  known 
as  a  friend  by  troops  of  children. 

It  is  pleasant  to  record  that  in  the  storm 
of  party  fury,  now  hotter  than  ever,  there  were 
some  Federalists  broad-minded  enough  to  do 
him  honor.  When,  in  1800,  Governor  Caleb 
Strong  was  advancing  through  Winter  Street, 
in  a  great  procession,  probably  at  the  time  of 
his  inauguration,  Mr.  Adams  was  observed  in 


SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

his  house,  looking  out  upon  the  pageant.  The 
governor  called  a  halt,  and  ordered  the  music 
to  cease.  Alighting  fro™  ^  &&&»  he 

e^eted  f-.J^  ^IA,-  *  ,      ., 

£*&        -  ~^~  ~vJiu  Jman  at  the  door,  grasped  the 

paralytic  hands,  and  expressed,  with  head  bared, 
his  reverence  for  Samuel  Adams.  The  soldiers 
presented  arms,  and  the  people  stood  uncovered 
and  silent. 

Could  he  have  lived  a  second  life,  a  brilliant 
recognition  would  probably  have  fallen  to  him. 
The  forces  of  federalism  were  becoming  ex 
hausted;  the  incoming  wave  of  democracy 
would  certainly  have  lifted  him  into  a  place  of 
power.  Already,  as  we  have  seen,  Virginia,  in 
1796,  cast  fifteen  votes  in  the  electoral  college 
for  him  as  president;  her  great  son,  Jefferson, 
as  he  came  at  last  into  the  supreme  position, 
recalled,  with  enthusiasm,  their  association  and 
sympathy  in  the  first  Congresses  and  could 
hardly  find  language  strong  enough  to  express 
his  regret  that  old  age  must  have  its  dues. 

"A  government  by  representatives  elected  by  the 
people,  at  short  periods,  was  our  object ;  and  our 
maxim  at  that  day  was,  'Where  annual  election  ends, 
tyranny  begins.'  Nor  have  our  departures  from  it 
been  sanctioned  by  the  happiness  of  their  effects." 
"  How  much  I  lament  that  time  has  deprived  me  of 
your  aid !  It  would  have  been  a  day  of  glory  which 
should  have  called  you  to  the  first  office  of  my  ad- 


CLOSING   YEARS.  413 

ministration.  But  give  us  your  counsel,  my  friend, 
and  give  us  your  blessing,  and  be  assured  that  there 
exists  not  in  the  heart  of  man  a  more  faithful  esteem 
than  mine  to  you,  and  that  I  shall  ever  bear  you  the 
most  affectionate  veneration  and  respect."  l 

His  work  was  done,  and  Adams  calmly 
awaited  the  end.  As  his  friends  were  obliged 
to  buy  clothes  for  him  that  he  might  make  a 
respectable  appearance  at  the  first  Continental 
Congress,  in  1774,  so  at  the  last  it  would  have 
been  necessary  to  support  and  bury  him  at  the 
public  expense,  had  he  not  inherited  from  his 
son,  the  army  surgeon,  claims  against  the  gov 
ernment  which  yielded  about  six  thousand  dol 
lars.  This  sum,  fortunately  invested,  sufficed 
for  the  simple  wants  of  himself  and  his  admi 
rable  wife. 

Tudor,  in  his  "  Life  of  James  Otis,"  gives 
the  following  often  quoted  description  of  the 
political  character  of  Samuel  Adams:  — 

"  He  attached  an  exclusive  value  to  the  habits  and 
principles  in  which  he  had  been  educated,  and  wished 
to  adjust  wide  concerns  too  closely  after  a  particular 
model.  One  of  his  colleagues  who  knew  him  well, 
and  estimated  him  highly,  described  him,  with  good- 
natured  exaggeration,  in  the  following  manner : 
'  Samuel  Adams  would  have  the  State  of  Massachu- 

1  February  26,  1800;  March  29,  1801;  from  the  manu 
scripts. 


414  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

setts  govern  the  Union,  the  town  of  Boston  govern 
Massachusetts,  and  that  he  should  govern  the  town 
of  Boston,  and  then  the  whole  would  not  be  inten 
tionally  ill-governed.' " 

It  is  not  a  good  description  of  Samuel  Ad 
ams's  limitation.  He  believed,  to  be  sure,  in 
the  town  first,  then  the  State,  then  the  Union  ; 
but  he  had  no  such  overweening  confidence  in 
himself  as  is  here  denoted.  From  the  voice  of 
the  plain  people  there  could  be,  in  his  idea,  no 
appeal.  In  town-meeting  assembled,  their  man 
date  would  be  wise,  and  must  be  authoritative. 
To  that  he  deferred  submissively  in  important 
crises,  postponing  his  own  judgment.  His  com 
rades  knew  it,  and  sometimes  shrewdly  played 
upon  him,  as  when  they  overcame  his  hesi 
tation  before  the  Federal  constitution.  Even 
when  he  himself  was  far  in  the  foreground, 
acting  with  all  energy  from  his  own  inspira 
tions,  it  is  probable  he  often  fancied  that  he 
represented  and  was  pushed  by  the  popular  im 
pulse.  He  was  submissive  before  "  instruc 
tions,"  as  if  in  some  way  he  were  really  heark 
ening  to  the  voice  of  God.  He  was  slow  in 
recognizing  the  ways  through  which,  in  a  vast 
republic  like  ours,  all  large  affairs  must  be  ad 
ministered.  A  nation  of  fifty  millions  cannot 
be  run  upon  the  town-meeting  plan.  There  is 
a  perilous  decentralization,  toward  which,  in 


CLOSING   YEARS.  415 

the  great  forming  days,  Samuel  Adams  tended, 
as  others  rushed  toward  peril  in  the  opposite 
extreme.  Into  the  feeble  Congress  of  1781  he 
could  not  bear  that  there  should  be  any  in 
troduction  of  "  one  man  power,"  which  alone 
could  give  it  efficiency ;  he  favored  terms  of 
office  too  short  for  the  suitable  training  of  the 
official  ;  he  thought  power  must  ever  return 
speedily  to  the  people  who  gave  it,  so  that  the 
representative  might  never  forget  that  he  was 
the  creature  of  his  constituents.  The  cases 
are  few,  however,  in  which  his  advocacy  was 
unreasonable  ;  when  all  has  been  said  that  can 
be  said,  America  has  had  but  few  public  men 
as  devoted,  as  wise,  as  magnificently  serviceable 
as  he. 

He  grew  feeble  during  the  summer  of  1803, 
and  was  conscious,  as  was  every  one,  that  the 
end  was  at  hand.  Early  on  the  morning  of  Sun 
day,  October  2,  the  tolling  bells  made  known  to 
the  town  that  he  was  dead.  The  "  Independent 
Chronicle  "  did  him  honor  the  next  day  in  a 
fine  specimen  of  dignified,  old-fashioned  obitu 
ary. 

There  was  embarrassment,  through  political 
enmity,  in  procuring  a  suitable  escort  for  his 
funeral.  But  at  length  difficulties  were  over 
come,  and  an  impressive  train,  headed  by  the 


416  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Independent  Cadets,  and  consisting  of  many 
dignitaries  and  private  friends,  accompanied 
the  plain  coffin  through  the  streets,  during  the 
firing  of  minute  guns  from  the  Castle.  He 
was  borne  past  the  doors  of  the  Old  South, 
which  in  his  age  had  become  his  place  of  wor 
ship;  at  length  the  muffled  drums  reverberated 
from  Faneuil  Hall,  but  before  reaching  it,  at 
the  Old  State  House,  the  funeral  turned.  Had 
no  occult  sympathy  established  itself  between 
the  heart  that  had  grown  still  and  the  pile 
that  rose  so  venerable  in  the  twilight  of  the 
autumn  day  ?  No  other  voice  had  sounded  so 
often  in  its  chambers  ;  its  thresholds  had  felt 
the  lightness  of  his  youth  and  the  feebleness  of 
his  age.  Beneath  its  roof  had  gathered  the 
scattered  Massachusetts  towns  in  the  great  old 
days,  and,  submissive  to  his  controlling  mind, 
had  there  wrought  out  a  work  that  must 
sanctify  the  spot  forever.  Had  there  been  a 
poet  in  the  crowd,  one  fancies  the  blank  win 
dows  of  the  council  chamber  and  the  assembly- 
room  might  have  been  seen  to  become  suffused, 
and  the  quaint  belfry  to  make  some  obeisance. 
There  is  no  record  that  any  sign  was  given. 
The  train  moved  up  Court  Street  into  Tremont 
Street,  and  in  the  Granary  Burying  Ground, 
close  by  the  victims  of  the  Boston  Massacre, 
Samuel  Adams  found  his  grave.  In  what  was 


CLOSING    YEARS.  417 

once  Dock  Square,  the  town  he  loved  has  com 
memorated  him  worthily  in  imposing  bronze. 
His  dust  lies  almost  beneath  the  feet  of  the 
passers  in  the  great  thoroughfare,  and  no  stone 
marks  the  spot. 

27 


CHAPTER  XXIII.       „  H  -  K90 
/H  frkA^o^M** 

THE  TOWN-MEETING  TO-DAY. 

HAVE  New  Englanders  preserved  the  town- 
meeting  of  Samuel  Adams  ?  Thirteen  million, 
or  about  one  quarter,  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
United  States,  are  believed  to  be  descendants  of 
the  twenty-one  thousand  who,  in  the  dark  days 
of  Stuart  domination,  came  from  among  the 
friends  of  Cromwell  and  Hampden  to  people  the 
northeast.  In  large  proportion  they  have  for 
saken  the  old  seats,  following  the  parallels  of 
latitude  into  the  great  northwest,  and  now  at 
length  across  the  continent  to  California  and 
Oregon.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century 
Grayson  wrote  to  Madison  that  "  New  England 
ers  are  amazingly  attached  to  their  custom  of 
planting  by  townships."  So  it  has  always  been  ; 
wherever  New  Englanders  have  had  power  to 
decide  as  to  the  constitution  of  a  forming  state, 
it  has  had  the  township  at  the  basis.  But  in 
the  immense  dilution  which  this  element  of 
population  has  constantly  undergone,  through 
the  human  flood  from  all  lands,  which,  side  by 


THE  TOWN-MEETING   TO-DAY.  419 

side  with  it,  has  poured  into  the  new  territories, 
its  influence  has  of  necessity  been  often  greatly 
weakened,  and  the  form  of  the  township  has 
been  changed  from  the  original  pattern,  sel 
dom  advantageously.1  In  New  England  itself, 
moreover,  a  similar  cause  has  modified  some 
what  the  old  circumstances.  While  multitudes 
of  the  ancient  stock  have  forsaken  the  granite 
hills,  their  places  have  been  supplied  by  a  Cel 
tic  race,  energetic  and  prolific,  whose  teeming 
families  throng  city  and  village,  threatening 
to  outnumber  the  Yankee  element,  depleted  as 
it  has  been  by  the  emigration  of  so  many  of  its 
most  vigorous  children.  To  these  new-comers 
must  be  added  now  the  French  Canadians, 
who,  following  the  track  of  their  warlike  an 
cestors  down  the  river- valleys,  have  come  by 
thousands  into  the  manufacturing  towns  and 
into  the  woods,  an  industrious  but  unprogres- 
sive  race,  good  hands  in  the  mills,  and  marvel- 
ously  dexterous  at  wielding  the  axe.  Whatever 
may  be  said  of  the  virtues  of  these  new-com 
ers,  and,  of  course,  a  long  list  could  be  made 
out  for  them,  they  have  not  been  trained  to 

i  S.  A.  Galpin,  Walker's  Statistical  Atlas  of  U.  S.  ii.  10. 
Johns  Hopkins  Univ.  Studies,  as  follows  :  Albert  Shaw,  Local 
Government  in  Illinois ;  E.  W.  Bemis,  Local  Government  in 
Michigan  and  the  North-  West ;  E.  R.  L.  Gould,  Local  Govern 
ment  in  Pennsylvania;  3,  Macy,  Institutional  Beginnings  of  a 
Western  State  (Iowa). 


420  SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

Anglo-Saxon  self-government.  We  have  seen 
the  origin  of  the  folk-mote  far  back  in  Teu 
tonic  antiquity.  As  established  in  New  Eng 
land,  it  is  a  revival  of  a  very  ancient  thing. 
The  institution  is  not  congenial  to  all  ;  the 
Irishman  and  Frenchman  are  not  at  home  in 
it,  and  cannot  accustom  themselves  to  it,  until, 
as  the  new  generations  come  forward,  they 
take  on  the  characteristics  of  the  people  among 
whom  they  have  come  to  cast  their  lot.  At 
present,  in  most  old  New  England  towns,  we 
find  an  element  of  the  population  numbering 
hundreds,  often  thousands,  who  are  sometimes 
quite  inert,  allowing  others  to  decide  all  things 
for  them  ;  sometimes  voting  in  droves  in  an 
unintelligent  way  as  some  whipper-in  may  di 
rect  ;  sometimes  in  unreasoning  partisanship 
following  through  thick  and  thin  a  cunning 
demagogue,  quite  careless  how  the  public  wel 
fare  may  suffer  by  his  coming  to  the  front. 

Still  another  circumstance  which  threatens 
the  folk-mote  is  the  multiplication  of  cities. 
When  a  community  of  moderate  size,  which  has 
gone  forward  under  its  town-meeting,  at  length 
increases  so  far  as  to  be  entitled  to  a  city  char 
ter,  the  day  is  commonly  hailed  by  ringing  of 
bells  and  salutes  of  cannon.  But  the  assuming 
of  a  city  charter  has  been  declared  to  be  "  an 
almost  complete  abnegation  of  practical  de- 


THE   TOWN-MEETING   TO-DAY,  421 

mocracy.  The  people  cease  to  govern  them 
selves  ;  once  a  year  they  choose  those  who  are 
to  govern  for  them.  Instead  of  the  town-meet 
ing  discussions  and  votes,  one  needs  now  to 
spend  only  ten  minutes,  perhaps,  in  a  year. 
No  more  listening  to  long  debates  about  schools, 
roads,  and  bridges.  One  has  only  to  drop  a  slip 
of  paper,  containing  a  list  which  some  one  has 
been  kind  enough  to  prepare  for  him,  into  a 
box,  and  he  has  done  his  duty  as  a  citizen." 1 
In  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  the  mayor 
and  common  council,  representing  the  citizens, 
do  the  work  for  them,  while  individuals  are  dis 
charged  from  the  somewhat  burdensome,  but 
educating  and  quickening  duties  of  the  folk- 
mote.  As  yet  the  way  has  not  been  discovered 
through  which,  in  an  American  city,  the  pri 
mordial  cell  of  our  liberty  may  be  preserved 
from  atrophy. 

Though  the  town-meeting  of  the  New  Eng 
land  of  to-day  rarely  presents  all  the  features 
of  the  town-meeting  of  Samuel  Adams,  yet 
wherever  the  population  has  remained  tolerably 
pure  from  foreign  admixture,  and  wherever  the 
numbers  at  the  same  time  have  not  become  so 
large  as  to  embarrass  the  transaction  of  busi 
ness,  the  institution  retains  much  of  its  old 
vigor.  The  writer  recalls  the  life,  as  it  was 

1  New  York  Nation,  May  29,  1866, 


422  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

twenty-five  years  ago,  of  a  most  venerable  and 
uncontaminated  old  town,  whose  origin  dates 
back  more  than  two  hundred  years.  At  first  it 
realized  almost  perfectly  the  idea  of  the  Teu 
tonic  "  tun."  For  a  long  time  it  was  the  fron 
tier  settlement,  with  nothing  to  the  west  but 
woods  until  the  fierce  Mohawks  were  reached, 
and  nothing  but  woods  to  the  north  until  one 
came  to  the  hostile  French  of  Canada.  About 
the  houses,  therefore,  was  drawn  the  protection 
of  a  palisade  to  inclose  them  (tynari)  against 
attack.  Though  not  without  some  foreign  in 
termixture,  the  old  stock  was,  twenty-five  years 
ago,  so  far  unchanged  that  in  the  various  "  dees- 
tricks"  the  dialect  was  often  unmistakably 
nasal ;  the  very  bob-o-links  in  the  meadow- 
grass,  and  the  bumble-bees  in  the  holly-hocks 
might  have  been  imagined  to  chitter  and  hum 
with  a  Yankee  twang  ;  and  "  Zekle  "  squired 
"Huldy,"  as  of  yore,  to  singing-school  or  ap 
ple-paring,  to  quilting  or  sugaring-off,  as  each 
season  brought  its  appropriate  festival.  The 
same  names  stood  for  the  most  part  on  tax,  vot 
ing,  and  parish  lists  that  stood  there  in  the  time 
of  Philip's  war,  when  for  a  space  the  people 
were  driven  out  by  the  Indian  pressure  ;  and  the 
fathers  had  handed  down  to  the  modern  day, 
with  their  names  and  blood,  the  venerable 
methods  by  which  they  regulated  their  lives. 


THE  TOWN-MEETING   TO-DAY.  423 

On  the  northern  boundary  a  factory  village  had 
sprung  up  about  a  water-power ;  at  the  south, 
too,  five  miles  off,  there  was  some  rattle  of  mills 
and  sound  of  hammers.  Generally,  however, 
the  people  were  farmers,  like  their  ancestors, 
reaping  great  hay-crops  in  June  with  which  to 
fat  in  the  stall  long  rows  of  sleek  cattle  for 
market  in  December ;  or,  by  farmer's  alchemy, 
transmuting  the  clover  of  the  rocky  hills  into 
golden  butter. 

From  far  and  near,  on  the  first  Monday  of 
March,  the  men  gathered  to  the  central  vil 
lage,  whose  people  made  great  preparations  for 
the  entertainment  of  the  people  of  the  out 
skirts.  What  old  Yankee,  wherever  he  may 
have  strayed,  will  not  remember  the  "town- 
meeting  gingerbread,"  and  the  great  roasts 
that  smoked  hospitably  for  all  comers !  The 
sheds  of  the  meeting-house  close  by  were 
crowded  with  horses  and  sleighs  ;  for,  in  the 
intermediate  slush,  between  ice  and  the  spring 
mud,  the  runner  was  likely  to  be  better  than 
the  wheel.  The  floor  of  the  town-hall  grew 
wet  and  heavy  in  the  trampling;  not  in  Eng 
land  alone  is  the  land  represented  ;  a  full  rep 
resentation  of  the  soil  comes  to  a  New  Eng 
land  town-meeting,  —  on  the  boots  of  the  free 
men.  On  a  platform  at  the  end  of  the  plain 
room  sat  the  five  selectmen  in  a  row,  —  at  their 


424  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

left  was  the  venerable  town  clerk,  with  the  am 
ple  volume  of  records  before  him.  His  memory 
went  back  to  the  men  who  were  old  in  Wash 
ington's  administration,  who  in  their  turn  re 
membered  men  in  whose  childhood  the  French 
and  Indians  burned  the  infant  settlement. 
Three  lives,  the  town  clerk's  being  the  third, 
spanned  the  whole  history  of  the  town.  He 
was  full  of  traditions,  precedents,  minutiae  of 
town  history,  and  was  an  authority  in  all  dis 
puted  points  of  procedure  from  whom  there 
was  no  appeal.  In  front  of  the  row  of  select 
men  with  their  brown,  solid  farmer  faces,  stood 
the  moderator,  a  vigorous  man  in  the  forties, 
six  straight  feet  in  height,  colonel  of  the  county 
regiment  of  militia,  of  a  term's  experience  in 
the  General  Court,  and  therefore  conversant 
with  parliamentary  law,  a  quick  and  energetic 
presiding  officer. 

It  was  indeed  an  arena.  The  south  village 
was  growing  faster  than  the  "  street,"  and  there 
were  rumors  of  efforts  to  be  made  to  move  the 
town-hall  from  its  old  place,  which  aroused  great 
wrath;  and  both  south  village  and  "street" 
took  it  hard  that  part  of  the  men  of  the  dis 
tricts  to  the  north  had  favored  a  proposition 
to  be  set  off  to  an  adjoining  town.  The  weak 
side  of  human  nature  came  out  as  well  as  the 
strong,  in  the  numerous  jealousies  and  bicker- 


THE  TOWN-MEETING   TO-DAY.  425 

ings.  Following  the  carefully  arranged  pro 
gramme  or  warrant,  from  which  there  could 
be  no  departure,  because  ample  warning  must 
be  given  of  every  measure  proposed,  item  after 
item  was  considered,  —  a  change  here  in  the 
course  of  the  highway  to  the  shire  town,  how 
much  should  be  raised  by  taxes,  the  apportion 
ment  of  money  among  the  school  districts,  what 
bounty  the  town  would  pay  its  quota  of  troops 
for  the  war,  a  new  wing  for  the  poor-house, 
whether  there  should  be  a  bridge  at  the  west 
ford.  Now  and  then  came  a  touch  of  humor, 
as  when  the  young  husbands,  married  within 
the  year,  were  elected  field-drivers,  officers  tak 
ing  the  place  of  the  ancient  hog-reeves.  Once 
the  moderator  for  the  time  being  displeased 
the  meeting  by  his  rulings  upon  certain  points 
of  order.  "  Mr.  Moderator,"  cried  out  an  an 
cient  citizen  with  a  twang  in  his  voice  like  that 
of  a  well-played  jewsharp,  "  ef  it 's  in  awrder, 
I  'd  jest  like  to  inquire  the  price  of  cawn  at 
Cheapside."  It  was  an  effective  reductio  ad 
absurdum.  Another  rustic  Cicero,  whom  for 
some  reason  the  physicians  of  the  village  had 
displeased,  once  filled  up  a  lull  in  proceedings 
with :  "  Mr.  Moderator,  I  move  that  a  dwelling 
be  erected  in  the  centre  of  the  grave-yard  in 
which  the  doctors  of  the  town  be  required  to 
reside,  that  they  may  have  always  under  their 
eyes  the  fruits  of  their  labors." 


426  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

The  talkers  were  sometimes  fluent,  some 
times  stumbling  and  awkward.  The  richest 
man  in  town,  at  the  same  time  town  treasurer, 
was  usually  a  silent  looker-on.  His  son,  how 
ever,  president  of  the  county  agricultural  so 
ciety,  an  enterprising  farmer,  whose  team  was 
the  handsomest,  whose  oxen  were  the  fattest, 
whose  crops  were  the  heaviest,  was  in  speech 
forceful  and  eloquent,  with  an  energetic  word 
to  say  on  every  question.  But  he  was  scarcely 
more  prominent  in  the  discussions  than  a  poor 
cultivator  of  broom-corn,  whose  tax  was  only  a 
few  dollars.  There  was  the  intrigue  of  certain 
free-thinkers  to  oust  the  ministers  from  the 
school-committee, — the  manoeuvring  of  the  fac 
tions  to  get  hold  of  the  German  colony,  a  body 
of  immigrants  lately  imported  into  the  factory- 
village  to  the  north.  These  sat  in  a  solid  mass 
at  one  side  while  the  proceedings  went  on  in 
an  unknown  tongue,  without  previous  training 
for  such  a  work,  voting  this  way  or  that  accord 
ing  to  the  direction  of  two  or  three  leaders. 

Watching  it  all,  one  could  see  how  perfect  a 
democracy  it  was.  Things  were  often  done  far 
enough  from  the  best  way.  Unwise  or  doubtful 
men  were  put  in  office,  important  projects  were 
stinted  by  niggardly  appropriations,  unworthy 
prejudices  were  allowed  to  interfere  with  wise 
enterprises.  Yet  in  the  main  the  result  was 


THE  TOWN-MEETING    TO-DAY.  427 

good.  This  was  especially  to  be  noted,  —  how 
thoroughly  the  public  spirit  of  those  who  took 
part  was  stimulated,  and  how  well  they  were 
trained  to  self-reliance,  intelligence  of  various 
kinds,  and  love  for  freedom.  The  rough  black 
smith  or  shoemaker,  who  had  his  say  as  to  what 
should  be  the  restriction  about  the  keeping  of 
dogs,  or  the  pasturing  of  sheep  on  the  western 
hills,  spoke  his  mind  in  homely  fashion  enough, 
and  possibly  recommended  some  course  not  the 
wisest.  That  he  could  do  so,  however,  helped 
his  self-respect,  and  caused  him  to  take  a  deeper 
interest  in  affairs  beyond  himself  than  if  things 
were  managed  without  a  right  on  his  part  to 
interfere  ;  and  this  gain  in  self-respect,  public 
spirit,  self-reliance,  to  the  blacksmith  and  shoe 
maker,  is  worth  far  more  than  a  mere  smooth 
or  cheap  carrying  on  of  affairs. 

Is  there  anything  more  valuable  among  An 
glo-Saxon  institutions  than  this  same  ancient 
folk-mote,  this  old-fashioned  New  England 
town-meeting  ?  What  a  list  of  important  men 
can  be  cited  who  have  declared,  in  the  strongest 
terms  that  tongue  can  utter,  their  conviction  of 
its  preciousness  ! 1  It  has  been  alleged  that  to 

1  John  Stuart  Mill,  Representative  Government,  p.  64,  etc. ; 
De  Tocqueville,  De  la  Democratic  en  Ame'rique,  i.  96,  etc.; 
J.  Toulmin  Smith,  Local  Self -Government  and  Centralization, 
p.  29,  etc. ;  May,  Constitutional  History  of  England,  ii.  460 ; 


428  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

this  more  than  anything  else  was  due  the  su 
premacy  of  England  in  America,  the  successful 
colonization  out  of  which  grew  at  last  the 
United  States.  France  failed  precisely  for  want 
of  this.1  England  prevailed  precisely  because 
"  nations  which  are  accustomed  to  township  in 
stitutions  and  municipal  government  are  better 
able  than  any  other  to  found  prosperous  col 
onies.  The  habit  of  thinking  and  governing 
for  one's  self  is  indispensable  in  a  new  coun 
try."  So  says  De  Tocqueville,  seeking  an  ex 
planation  for  the  failure  of  his  own  race,  and 
the  victory  of  its  great  rival.2  None  have  ad 
mired  this  thorough  New  England  democracy 
more  heartily  than  those  living  under  a  very 
different  polity.  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Vir 
ginia  wrote  in  admiration  of  Massachusetts,3  as 
the  place  u  where  yet  I  hope  to  finish  the  re 
mainder  of  my  days.  The  hasty,  unpersever- 
ing,  aristocratic  genius  of  the  South  suits  not 
my  disposition,  and  is  inconsistent  with  my 

Bluntschli,  quoted  by  H.  B.Adams,  Germanic  Origin  ofN.  E. 
Towns ;  Jefferson,  to  Kercheval,  July  12,  1816,  and  to  Cabell, 
February  2,  1816;  John  Adams,  Letter  to  his  wife,  October 

29,  1775;   Samuel   Adams,  Letter   to   Noah   Webster,  April 

30,  1784;   R.  W.  Emerson,    Concord  Bicentennial  Discourse, 
1835,  etc. 

1  Lecky,  Hist.  XVIIIth  Century,  i.  387. 

2  De  la  Dem.  en  Am.  i.  423. 

8  Life  of  R.  H.  Lee,  Letter  to  John  Adams,  October  7, 
1779,  i.  226. 


THE  TOWN-MEETING     TO-DAY.  429 

views  of  what  must  constitute  social  happiness 
and  security."  Jefferson  becomes  almost  fierce 
in  the  earnestness  with  which  he  urges  Vir 
ginia  to  adopt  the  township.  "  Those  wards, 
called  townships  in  New  England,  are  the  vital 
principle  of  their  governments,  and  have  proved 
themselves  the  wisest  invention  ever  devised 
by  the  wit  of  man  for  the  perfect  exercise  of 
self-government,  and  for  its  preservation.  .  .  . 
As  Cato,  then,  concluded  every  speech  with  the 
words  4  Carthago  delenda  estj  so  do  I  every 
opinion  with  the  injunction:  'Divide  the  coun 
ties  into  wards ! '  "  1 

The  town-meeting  has  been  called  "  the  pri 
mordial  cell  of  our  body-politic."  Is  its  condition 
at  present  such  as  to  satisfy  us  ?  As  we  have 
seen,  even  in  New  England,  it  is  only  here  and 
there  that  it  can  be  said  to  be  well-maintained. 
At  the  South,  Anglo-Saxon  freedom,  like  the 
enchanted  prince  of  the  "Arabian  Nights," 
whose  body  below  the  waist  the  evil  witch  had 
fixed  in  black  marble,  had  been  fixed  in  African 
slavery.  The  spell  is  destroyed  ;  the  prince  has 
his  limbs  again,  but  they  are  weak  and  wasted 
from  the  hideous  trammel.  The  traces  of  the 
folk-mote  in  the  South  are  sadly  few.  Nor 
elsewhere  is  the  prospect  encouraging.  The 
influx  of  alien  tides  to  whom  our  precious  heir- 

1  Works,  vi.  544;  vii.  13. 


430  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

looms  are  as  nothing,  the  growth  of  cities  and 
the  inextricable  perplexities  of  their  govern 
ment,  the  vast  inequality  of  condition  between 
man  and  man  —  what  room  i§  there  for  the  lit 
tle  primary  council  of  freemen,  homogeneous  in 
stock,  holding  the  same  faith,  on  the  same  level 
as  to  wealth  and  station,  not  too  few  in  num 
ber  for  the  kindling  of  interest,  not  so  many  as 
to  become  unmanageable  —  what  room  is  there 
for  it,  or  how  can  it  be  revivified  or  created  ?  It 
is,  perhaps,  hopeless  to  think  of  it.  Mr.  Free 
man  remarks  that  in  some  of  the  American  col 
onies  "  representation  has  supplanted  the  prim 
itive  Teutonic  democracy,  which  had  sprung  into 
life  in  the  institutions  of  the  first  settlers." 
Over  vast  areas  of  our  country  to-day,  repre 
sentation  has  supplanted  democracy.  It  is  an 
admirable,  an  indispensable  expedient,  of  course. 
Yet  that  a  representative  system  may  be  thor 
oughly  well  managed,  we  need  below  it  the 
primary  assemblies  of  the  individual  citizens, 
"  regular,  fixed,  frequent,  and  accessible,"  dis 
cussing  affairs  and  deciding  for  themselves. 
De  Tocqueville  seems  to  have  thought  that  An 
glo-Saxon  America  owes  its  existence  to  the 
town-meeting.  It  would  be  hard,  at  any  rate, 
to  show  that  the  town-meeting  was  not  a  main 
source  of  our  freedom.  Certainly  it  is  well  to 
hold  it  in  memory ;  to  give  it  new  life,  if  pos- 


THE   TOWN-MEETING    TO-DAY.  431 

sible,  wherever  it  exists;  to  reproduce  some 
semblance  of  it,  however  faint,  in  the  regions 
to  which  it  is  unknown ;  it  is  well  to  brush  the 
dust  off  the  half-forgotten  historic  figure  who, 
of  all  men,  is  its  best  type  and  representative. 


INDEX. 


ADAMS,  HENRY,  progenitor  of  the 
Adams  family,  13. 

Adams,  John,  value  of  his  diary,  43  ; 
describes  James  Otis  in  the  case 
of  the  writs  of  assistance,  44 ; 
writes  the  Braintree  instructions 
in  17G5,  53  ;  supports  the  petition 
to  the  governor  and  council  in 
1765,  75;  describes  the  Caucus 
Club,  76  ;  removes  to  Boston  and 
writes  instructions  for  the  repre 
sentatives  in  1768,  112  ;  writes  in 
structions  for  the  representatives 
in  1769,  135  ;  drives  with  Samuel 
Adams,  152  ;  his  account  of  Sam 
uel  Adams  at  the  time  of  the  Bos 
ton  Massacre,  172  ;  serves  on  the 
night-watch,  175  ;  defends  the  sol 
diers.  183;  gives  aid  in  the  con 
troversy  as  to  parliamentary  au 
thority,  210 ;  presides  at  the  Port 
Bill  meeting  in  1774,  293  ;  elected 
delegate  to  the  first  Continental 
Congress,  295,  etc.  ;  sets  out  for 
Philadelphia,  reports  the  journey 
in  his  diary,  309,  etc.  ;  his  self- 
consciousness,  311  ;  nominates 
Washington  for  commander-in- 
chief ,  335 ;  begins  to  favor  inde 
pendence  in  third  Continental 
Congress,  341 ;  on  committee  to 
prepare  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  348;  the  best  debater 
in  the  early  Congresses,  359 ;  de 
fends  aristocracy  in  a  controversy 
with  Samuel  Adams,  406. 

Adams,  Captain  John,  grandfather 
of  Samuel  Adams,  14. 

Adams,  Joseph,  grandfather  of  Pres 
ident  John  Adams,  14. 

Adams,  Samuel,  Senior,  father  of 
Samuel  Adams,  a  political  leader, 
his  home  and  estate,  justice  of 
the  peace,  deacon,  selectman, 
member  of  Assembly,  helps  form 

-'.—  -    28 


the  Caulkers'  Club,  15;  opposes 
Governor  Shute,  16 ;  his  promi 
nence  in  time  of  Governor  Shir 
ley,  19  ;  dies  in  1748,  20. 
Adams,  Samuel,  his  parentage,  14  ; 
school  days  and  college  life,  16; 
his  thesis  as  a  Master  of  Arts,  17  ; 
tries  law,  mercantile  life,  18  ;  be 
comes  his  father's  partner  in  a 
malt-house,  19  ;  marries  Elizabeth 
Checkley,  20  ;  inherits  a  feud 
with  Thomas  Hutchinson,  34  ;  at 
tempt  to  seize  and  sell  his  prop 
erty  to  close  the  Land  Bank 
scheme,  35;  accused  of  defalca 
tion  as  tax-collector,  37,  47  ;  shows 
marks  of  age  at  42,  death  of  his 
wife,  failure  in  business,  46 ;  writes 
town's  instructions  to  the  repre 
sentatives  in  1764,  47 ;  marries 
Elizabeth  Wells,  50;  elected  to 
Assembly  in  1765,  man  of  the  town- 
meeting,  54;  becomes  the  leader 
of  the  Assembly,  62 ;  compared 
with  James  Otis,  63  ;  opposes  par 
liamentary  representation  of  the 
colonies,  64,  67  ;  writes  the  re 
sponse  to  Barnard  and  the  Massa 
chusetts  Resolves,  71  ;  suggests  ] 
the  non-importation  scheme,  74;  I 
his  keenness  in  discovering  able 
young  men,  75  ;  becomes  clerk  of 
the  Assembly,  93 ;  non-importa 
tion  and  non-consumption  agree 
ments  adopted,  101 ;  writes  docu 
ments  constituting  the  "  True 
Sentiments  of  America,"  103  ; 
denounces  a  Protestant  episco 
pate,  104  ;  writes  the  ' '  Circular 
Letter"  of  1768,  105;  has  words 
with  James  Otis,  113;  his  popu 
larity  with  mechanics  and  labor 
ers,  115 ;  description  of,  in  the 
affidavit  of  Richard  Sylvester, 
117  ;  begins,  in  1768,  to  work  for 


434 


INDEX. 


independence,  119;  Tory  accusa 
tions  of  duplicity,  120 ;  his  indig 
nation  at  reactionary  spirit  in 
1768,  123 ;  appealed  to  to  save  a 
soldier  irom  Hogging,  128  ;  his  ac 
tivity  in  the  newspapers,  129 ;  on 
imperfections  of  the  British  con- 

w^stitution,  130;  publicly  hints  at 
independence  in  17G9,  134 ;  de 
nounces  the  Rev.  Mr.  Seabury, 
135 ;  inocks  Governor  Bernard  at 
his  departure,  140 ;  becomes  leader 
of  the  patriots  on  the  decay  of 
Otis,  148  ;  his  poverty  and  incor 
ruptibility,  152  ;  writes  ' '  Appeal 
to  the  World,"  154;  protects  the 

x/Scotchman,  157 ;  his  bearing  at 
the  time  of  the  Boston  Massacre, 
167,  etc.  ;  his  speech  to  Governor 
Hutchinson  in  the  council  cham 
ber,  173 ;  displeased  with  the  issue 
of  the  trial  of  the  soldiers,  the 
"  Vindex"  letters,  184;  foiled  by 
Hutchinson  in  the  controversy  as 
to  royal  instructions,  186 ;  dis 
trusts  Franklin,  189  ;  opposes  su- 
Eineness  in  1771,  191;  denounces 
i  1772  pensioned  judges,  194 ; 

V  brings  into  being  the  Committee 
of  Correspondence,  196,  etc. ;  his 
counsel  sought  by  Rhode  Island 
at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of 
the  Gaspee.  205  ;  the  controversy 
as  to  parliamentary  authority, 
210,  etc.  ;  his  connection  with  the 
affair  of  the  Hutchinson  letters, 
225;  advocates  a  congress  of  the 
colonies  in  1773,  236  ;  publicly  ad 
vocates  independence  in  1773, 
238;  his  part  in  the  destruction 
of  the  tea,  243,  etc.  ;  bases  Amer 
ica's  claim  to  liberty  mainly  on 
natural  right,  258 ;  tries  to  bring 
about  the  impeachment  of  Chief 
Justice  Peter  Oliver,  261 ;  writes 
an  oration  for  Hancock  to  deliver 
on  anniversary  of  the  Massacre, 
263  ;  his  great  ascendency  at  time 
of  the  Port  Bill,  290;  engineers 
the  choosing  of  delegates  for  the 
first  Continental  Congress,  291, 
etc.  ;  elected  delegate  to  the  first 
Continental  Congress,  295,  etc.  ; 
locks  the  Assembly  in,  296  ;  ch?ir- 
man  of  committee  for  relieving 
the  poor  and  distributing  dona- 
tions  after  the  Port  Bill  goes  into 

v  operation,  298 ;  champion  of  the 
Committee  of  Correspondence 
against  the  Tories,  299 ;  the  gov 


ernment's  reasons  for  not  seizing 
him  in  1774,  testimony  of  Hutch 
inson  to  his  incorruptibility,  301 ; 
Gage's  attempt  upon  him  through 
Colonel  Fenton,  302  :  his  ideas  of 
democracy,  303;  his  home  life, 
the  place  in  Purchase  Street,  305  ; 
his  taste  in  music,  306 ;  receives 
help  from  his  friends  before  going 
to  Philadelphia,  308  ;  sets  out  for 
the  first  Congress,  309;  his  reti 
cence,  311  ;  meets  on  the  journey 
to  Philadelphia  patriots  from  the 
other  colonies,  312  ;  his  influence 
dreaded  in  the  Congress,  315  ;  he 
moves  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Duche, 
an  Episcopalian,  open  the  Con 
gress  with  prayer,  315;  on  com 
mittee  to  state  the  rights  of  the 
colonies,  317  ;  vigorously  opposes 
all  concession,  320;  his  great  in 
fluence  in  Massachusetts,  321 ;  in 
the  Provincial  Congress,  322  ;  at 
the  town-meeting  of  March  6, 
1775,  324,  etc. ;  letter  to  R.  H. 
Lee  describing  it,  328  ;  flight  from 
Lexington,  April  19,  1775,  330, 
331  ;  on  the  way  to  the  second 
Continental  Congress,  332 ;  soli 
tary  among  leading  statesmen,  in 
1775,  in  his  wish  for  independence, 
333  ;  seconds  nomination  of  Wash 
ington  to  be  commandef-in-chief, 
335  ;  proscribed  by  Gage,  336  ;  let 
ter  on  his  proscription  and  the 
death  of  Joseph  Warren,  337  ;  cor 
diality  toward  Washington,  agency 
in  the  appointment  of  Charles  Lee 
to  be  second  in  command,  becomes 
secretary  of  state  in  Massachu 
setts,  339 ;  at  Philadelphia  for  the 
third  Continental  Congress,  340  ; 
promotes  invasion  of  Canada,  341 ; 
writes  "  Earnest  Appeal  to  the  Peo 
ple,"  in  behalf  of  independence, 
February,  1776,  342 ;  denounces 
his  colleagues  from  Massachusetts, 
343  ;  denounces  the  Quakers,  344  ; 
in  the  debate  on  R.  H.  Lee's  reso 
lution,  347  ;  on  committee  to  pre 
pare  a  plan  of  confederation, 
348 ;  letter  to  John  Pitts  describ 
ing  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  350  ;  the  man  of  the  town- 
meeting,  352,  etc.  ;  his  place  in 
the  group  of  Massachusetts  lead 
ers,  a  combination  of  incongrui 
ties,  357  ;  as  an  orator.  358  ;  as  a 
writer,  360,  etc. ;  testimony  of 
friends  and  enemies  to  his  power, 


INDEX, 


435 


362 ;  as  a  manager  of  men,  3G3, 
etc. ;  called  by  Jefferson  the  Pa- 
linurus  of  the  Revolution,  3G5; 
a  Tory's  estimate,  3GG ;  Riving- 
ton's  estimate,  3G7  ;  a  typical  Yan 
kee,  3G8;  his  unselfishness,  3G9 ; 
"  second  only  to  Washington," 
370 ;  his  importance  not  circum 
scribed,  371  ;  first  advocate  of  in 
dependence,  372 ;  appropriateness 
of  the  title  "  Father  of  America," 
374 ;  his  later  congressional  ser 
vice,  helps  construct  the  state 
constitution  of  Massachusetts, 
376;  never  unfriendly  to  Wash 
ington,  377,  etc. ;  at  the  reception 
of  M.  Gerard,  French  ambassador, 
380;  helps  maintain  the  entente 
cordiale  with  the  French,  opposes 
giving  half-pay  for  life  to  Revolu 
tionary  officers,  opposes  estab 
lishment  of  departments  with 
secretaries,  381,382;  his  last  act 
in  Congress  to  sign  Articles  of 
•^Confederation,  382 ;  his  attach- 
**fhent  to  these,  385  ;  continued  in 
terest  in  Boston  town-meeting, 
386;  president  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Senate,  387  ;  at  the  depart 
ure  of  the  French  army,  implaca 
ble  towards  the  Tories,  388  ;  re 
ports  no  defects  in  the  town  con 
stitution  of  Boston,  389  ;  opposes 
Shays's  rebellion,  391  ;  hesitates 
at  the  adoption  of  the  federal 
constitution,  392,  etc.  ;  how  won 
over,  396;  defeated  for  Congress 
by  Fisher  Ames,  warned  against 
assassination,  becomes  lieutenant- 
governor,  402 ;  address  to  the 
Massachusetts  legislature,  403  ; 
controversy  as  to  theatrical  rep 
resentations,  404, 4C5 ;  controversy 
with  John  Adams,  leads  "Repub 
licans  ''  in  Massachusetts,  406  ; 
restored  friendship  with  Hancock, 
last  letter  to  Hancock,  407;  at 
Hancock's  funeral,  as  governor, 
408;  approves  Washington's  pol 
icy  as  to  foreign  entanglements, 
disapproves  Jay  treaty,  honored 
by  Virginia  in  presidential  elec 
tion  of  1796,  409;  appearance  in 
/'age,  410 ;  interest  in  common 
schools,  411 ;  Caleb  Strong's  ven 
eration,  Jefferson's  tribute,  412, 
/413;  his  deference  toward  the 
voice  of  tl  e  people,  414  ;  his 
death,  415 ;  his  funeral,  416 ;  his 
unmarked  grave,  417. 


Adams,  Samuel,  3d,  studies  medi 
cine  with  Dr.  \Varreu,  306 ;  es 
capes  from  Boston  during  the 
siege,  337  ;  becomes  a  surgeon  in 
Washington's  army,  339  ;  his 
death,  393. 

Ames,  Fisher,  his  influence  at  the 
adoption  of  the  federal  constitu 
tion  by  Massachusetts,  398  ;  de 
feats  Samuel  Adams  for  Congress, 
402. 

Appeal  to  the  World,  154. 

Assembly,  Massachusetts,  constitu 
tion  of,  23  ;  relation  of  to  the 
town-meetings,  55,  cts.  ;  its  cham 
ber  in  the  Old  State  House,  GO. 

Attucks,  Crispus,  killed  in  the  Bos 
ton  Massacre,  164. 

BARRE,  COLONEL  ISAAC,  opposes  the 
Stamp  Act  in  Parliament,  51 ;  his 
speech  at  the  time  of  the  Boston 
Port  Bill,  2G5. 

Bears,  Isaac,  landlord  at  New  Ha 
ven,  entertains  del  agates  to  the 
first  Congress,  310,  312. 
Beaver,  tea-ship  in  1773,  250. 
Bernard,  Francis,  becomes  governor 
in  17GO,  his  character,  38,  140; 
opposes  the  Stamp  Act,  Camden's 
testimony  in  his  favor,  51  ;  his 
conduct  in  the  affair  of  the  Lib 
erty,  111 ;  his  removal  prayed  for 
by  the  Assembly,  115 ;  describes  a 
town-meeting,  122 ;  adjourns  As 
sembly  to  Cambridge  in  1769, 
136 ;  recalled  and  made  baronet, 
139  ;  his  departure  from  America, 
143  ;  testimony  as  to  S.  Adams  as 
a  writer,  362. 
Billeting  Act,  138. 
Blackburn,  Judge,  his  view  of  par 
liamentary  supremacy,  given  in 
18G8,  in  the  case  of  Governor  Eyre 
of  Jamaica,  85. 

I  Bland,  Richard,  of  Virginia,  recom- 

I      mends  restoration  in  English  con- 

I      stitution  of  the  primitive  Anglo- 

i      Saxon  freedom,  87. 

j  Board  of  Trade,  its  baleful  agency 
in  promoting  the  estrangement  of 

j      the  colonies  from  England,  27. 

I  Bollan,     agent     of     Massachusetts 

i  Council,  obtains  in  England  let 
ters  thought  to  compromise  Ber- 

j      nard,  142. 

j  Boston,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Rev 
olution,  3  ;  town  records  of,  4  ; 
population,  5 ;  industries  of,  6 ; 
slavery  in,  7  ;  ministers,  mer- 


436 


INDEX. 


chants  of,  8 ;  workmen,  newspa 
pers,  10  ;  folk-mote  in,  11  ;  leads 
the  Revolution,  13  ;  calls  a  con 
vention  of  towns  in  1768, 122  ;  con 
duct  at  the  time  of  the  Massacre, 
184 ;  conduct  at  destruction  of 
tea,  243  :  conduct  at  the  time  of 
the  Port  Bill,  271  ;  harbor  closed 
by  the  Port  Bill,  289 ;  Gage  tries 
vainly  to  stop  the  town-meetings, 
323. 

Boston  Gazette,  organ  of  the  Whigs, 
its  popularity,  133,  134. 

Bowdoin,  James,  of  Huguenot  ori 
gin,  5 ;  becomes  leader  of  the 
Council  in  1766,  96;  steadfast 
against  removal  of  the  legislature 
from  Boston,  187  :  takes  part  in 
the  controversy  as  to  parliament 
ary  authority,  214 ;  takes  part  in 
tlie  effort  to  impeach  Chief  Jus 
tice  Oliver,  261 ;  elected  delegate 
to  the  first  Continental  Congress, 
295  ;  prevented  from  going  by  the 
sickness  of  his  wife,  309  ;  his  use 
fulness  crippled  by  ill-health,  356 ; 
portrait  of  in  Shays's  rebellion. 
392. 

Bunker  Hill,  battle  of,  337. 

Burke,  Edmund,  his  ideas  on  rep 
resentation,  57  ;  his  maiden 
speech,  81 ;  friend  of  America  in 
1769,  131. 

Byles,  Rev.  Dr.  Mather,  8  ;  on  the 
re(d)dressed  grievances,  127. 

CAMDEN,  Lord,  praises  Governor 
Bernard,  51 ;  his  speech  in  debate 
on  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  82  ; 
disposed  to  rest  the  cause  of  the 
colonies  on  the  basis  of  natural 
justice,  87. 

Charter,  first,  of  Massachusetts,  21 ; 
second,  its  features,  22,  23  ; 
changed  in  1774,  302. 

Chase,  Thomas,  of  Maryland,  favors 
independence,  344. 

Chauncy,  Rev.  Charles,  8 ;  his  con 
troversy  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Sea- 
bury,  135. 

Checkley,  Elizabeth,  first  wife  of 
Samuel  Adams,  20 ;  her  death,  46. 

Church,  Dr.  Benjamin,  appears  to 
favor  the  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence,  197  ;  drafts  in  part  its 
manifesto,  201 ;  his  oration  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  Massacre,  216  ; 
suggests  a  Congress  of  the  col 
onies  in  1773,  217  ;  treason  of, 


Church  membership,  at  first  requi 
site  for  a  freeman,  22. 

Circular  Letter  of  1768,  adopted, 
1C5,  106  ;  Assembly  refuses  to  re 
scind  it,  114. 

Clark,  Major  George  Rogers,  finds, 
in  subduing  the  Mississippi  valley, 
the  Indians  and  habitant  prepared 
"to  fight  Boston,"  13. 

Clark,  Rev.  Jonas,  Adams  and  Han 
cock  at  his  house  in  Lexington, 
April,  1775,  330. 

Clarke,  Richard,  consignee  of  tea 
in  1773,  244. 

Committee  of  Correspondence,  Sam 
uel  Adams's  first  idea  of,  account 
of  its  formation,  196,  etc. ;  re 
sponse  of  the  towns  to  its  over 
tures,  201,  etc.  ;  intercolonial,  pro 
posal  for  proceeds  from  Virginia, 
218. 

Confederation,  Articles  of,  difficul 
ties  of  framing,  382,  etc.  ;  Samuel 
Adams's  attachment  to,  385. 

Congress,  Continental,  recommend 
ed  by  Church  and  Samuel  Adams, 
237 ;  election  of  delegates  to  the 
first,  297,  etc.  ;  opening  of  the 
first,  313  ;  state  papers  of  the  first, 
319  ;  not  unsatisfactory  to  the 
friends  of  freedom,  321 ;  second 
Continental  Congress,  333,  etc.  ; 
third  Continental  Congress,  341, 
etc. 

Congress,  Provincial,  steps  toward, 
303  ;  ability  and  worth  of  its  mem 
bers,  322. 

Constitution,  federal,  adoption  of 
in  Massachusetts,  392,  etc. 

Conway,  General,  English  secretary 
of  state,  80. 

Cooper,  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel,  8  ;  prayer 
at  town-meeting  after  the  Boston 
Massacre,  167 ;  favors  independ 
ence,  345. 

Cooper,  William,  town  clerk  of  Bos 
ton,  5,  36  ;  presides  at  the  meet 
ing  alter  the  Massacre,  166;  hia 
vehemence  against  the  soldiers, 
184 ;  at  the  destruction  of  the  tea, 
255  ;  at  town-meeting  of  March  6, 
1775,  325. 

I  Copley,  J.  S.,  his  portraits  of  mer- 
[      chants,  9  ;  paints  Samuel  Adams, 
181 ;  his  conduct  at  destruction  of 
the  tea,  249. 

i  Council,  constitution  of,  23 ;  changed 
by  Parliament  in  1774,  266. 

Court,  Superior,  constitution  of, 
24;  controversy  concerning  inde- 


INDEX. 


437 


pendence  of  judges  of,  216,  234,  ' 
259. 
Courts,  subordinate,  constitution  of, 

Gushing,  Thomas,  Samuel  Adams  in 
the  counting-room  of    the  father 
of,  18 ;  speaker  of  the  Assembly  for 
successive  years,  93 ;  reactionary  ; 
in  the  case  of  the  removal  of  the  j 
legislature,  186  ;  opposes  the  Com-  ; 
mittee  of    Correspondence,   197  ;  | 
chairman  of  the  legislative  Com-  j 
mittee    of  Correspondence,   219 ;  | 
favors  submission  in  1773,  237  ;  j 
brought    over    to  Whig    side    by  ! 
Samuel  Adams,  239 ;  elected  dele 
gate  to  first  Continental  Congress,  | 
295;    sets  out  for    Philadelphia, 
309;    favors  conciliation  in  third 
Continental  Congress,  341  ;    fails 
of  reelection,  343 ;  his  limitation, 
356. 

DALRYMPLE,  colonel  of  the  14th  regi 
ment  at  Boston  Massacre,  169  ; 
yields  to  the  people,  174  ;  his 
character  as  a  soldier,  178. 

Dartmouth,  Earl  of,  colonial  sec 
retary  after  Hillsborough,  237  ; 
HutchinsOn  describes  to  him  Sam 
uel  Adams,  240. 

Dartmouth,  first  tea-ship  in  1773, 
247. 

Deberdt,  Dennys,  agent  of  the  As 
sembly  in  England,  addressed 
through  Samuel  Adams  in  1768, 
103  ;  dies  and  is  succeeded  by 
Franklin,  187  ;  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  moved  by  R.  H.  Lee, 
346  ;  debate  on,  347  ;  committee 
to  draft,  348  ;  hilarity  of  Congress 
at  its  adoption,  349. 

Declaratory  Act,  91. 

De  Tocqueville,  on  the  value  of  the 
town-meeting,  428,  430. 

Dickinson,  John,  author  of  the 
"  Farmer's  Letters,"  109  ;  thanked 
by  Boston,  110 ;  vehement  oppo 
sition  to  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  346. 

Distilling,  important  business  in  co 
lonial  Boston,  6. 

Duch(5,  Rav.  Mr.,  opens  first  Conti 
nental  Congress  with  prayer,  316. 

EAST  INDIA  COMPANY,  distress  of  to 
be  relieved  by  the  Tea  Act,  236. 

Ecclesiasticism,  potent  cause  of  the 
estrangement  of  the  colonies  from 
England,  27. 


Edes  &  Gill,  publishers  of  the  Bos 
ton  Gazette,  their  office  an  impor 
tant  gathering  place  for  the  Whigs, 
129,  134,  245. 

Eleanor,  tea-ship  in  1773,  250. 

Eliot,  Rev.  Andrew,  8. 

FANEUIL,  BENJAMIN,  of  Huguenot 
origin,  5  ;  consignee  of  the  tea 
in  1773,  244. 

Faneuil  Hall,  usual  place  for  town- 
meetings,  59 ;  four  hundred  mus 
kets  on  the  floor,  121  ;  quarters  of 
the  14th  regiment,  124 ;  at  the 
time  of  the  Massacre,  166;  Sam 
uel  Adams  in,  353. 

Fifield,  Mary,  mother  of  Samuel 
Adams,  14. 

Flucker,  Thomas,  colonial  secre 
tary,  187  ;  sent  by  Gage  to  pro 
rogue  Assembly  in  1774,  296. 

Folk-mote,  primordial  cell  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  liberty,  reappears  in  the 
New  England  town-meeting.  See 
Town- Meet  ing. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  before  the  bar 
of  the  House  of  Commons  in  1766, 
31 ;  acquiesces  in  the  Stamp  Act, 
50  ;  favors  representation  of  the 
colonies  in  Parliament,  64 ;  agent 
of  the  Assembly,  188 ;  distrusted 
by  Samuel  Adams,  189  ;  his  con 
nection  with  the  Hutchinson  let 
ters,  221, 233  ;  favors  making  com 
pensation  for  the  destroyed  tea, 
265 ;  regards  independence  with 
disfavor,  345 ;  on  committee  to 
draft  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  348  ;  his  joke  July  4th,  349. 

Franklin,  William,  Tory  governor 
of  New  Jersey,  190. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  harsh  judgment  of 
either  party  in  American  Revolu 
tion  out  of  place,  26 ;  his  views 
anticipated  by  Bland,  87  ;  his  ac 
count  of  the  democracy  of  Switz 
erland,  354 ;  declares  representa 
tion  is  supplanting  democracy  in 
some  parts  of  America,  430. 

GADSDEN,  CHRISTOPHER,  early  ready 
for  independence,  340. 

Gage,  General  Thomas,  testimony 
to  the  leadership  of  Boston  in  the 
Revolution,  13  ;  demands  quarters 
for  the  troops  in  1768,  127  ;  ap 
pointed  temporarily  governor, 
267;  enters  upon  his  office,  273, 
289;  foiled  by  Samuel  Adams  in 
the  election  of  delegates  to  the 


438 


INDEX. 


first  Continental  Congress,  297 : 
fortifies  Boston  Neck,  303  ;  foiled 
by  Boston  as  to  the  prohibition  of 
town  -  meetings,  323  ;  proscribes 
Samuel  Adams  and  Hancock,  33G. 

Galloway,  the  Tory,  his  testimony 
as  to  the  influence  of  Samuel  Ad 
ams  in  1774,  318. 

Gaspee,  the  burning  of  the,  205. 

George  III.,  difficulty  of  his  posi 
tion,  26. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  Samuel  Adams 
writes  to  him  concerning  the  Com 
mittee  of  Correspondence,  197  ; 
elected  to  third  Continental  Con 
gress.  343 ;  joked  tor  his  small 
size  at  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  349  ;  opposed  to  federal 
constitution,  401. 

Ge"rard,  French  ambassador,  for 
mally  received,  380. 

Goldthwait,  Ezekiel,  town  clerk  of 
Boston,  36. 

Gordon,  his  description  of  a  New 
England  town  at  the  Revolution, 
2  ;  his  testimony  to  the  self-seek 
ing  of  James  Otis,  151  ;  his  testi 
mony  as  to  the  earnestness  of 
Samuel  Adams  in  the  first  Con 
gress,  320. 

Grayson,  on  attachment  of  New 
Ensflanders  to  town-meetings,  418. 

Greenleaf,  sheriff  of  Suffolk,  at  the 
destruction  of  the  tea,  248. 

Grenville,  George,  enforces  customs 
regulations  at  the  close  of  the 
Seven  Years'  War,  40  ;  introduces 
the  Stamp  Act,  50  ;  favors  parlia 
mentary  representation  for  the 
colonies,  G4  ;  his  fair  purposes, 
79  ;  disapproves  the  order  requir 
ing  the  rescinding  of  the  Circular 
Letter  of  1768,  132. 

Grey's  rope-walk,  workmen  of,  en 
gage  in  brawls  with  the  soldiers, 
161. 

HALL,  captain  of  the  tea-ship  Dart 
mouth,  247. 

Hancock,  John,  at  home,  8 ;  cele 
brates  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
91  ;  elected  to  Assembly,  92 ;  at 
the  time  of  the  Massacre,  171  ; 
employs  Copley  to  paint  Samuel 
Adams,  181  ;  reactionary  in  the 
case  of  the  removal  of  the  legis 
lature,  186  ;  his  connection  with 
the  Hutchinson  letters,  225  ;  his 
part  in  the  destruction  of  the  tea, 
243,  etc. ;  opposes  the  Committee 


of  Correspondence,  197 :  his  ora 
tion  on  the  anniversary  of  the 
Massacre,  262 :  receives  Gage  on 
his  arrival  as  governor,  273  ;  flight 
from  Lexington,  April  19,  1775, 
330  ;  writes  a  manly  letter,  331 ;  be 
comes  President  of  Congress,  335 ; 
his  mortification  at  the  nomination 
of  Washington  as  commander-in- 
chief,  proscribed  by  Gage,  336  ; 
affiliates  with  aristocrats,  341  ; 
his  limitations,  356  ;  called  the 
"dupe"  of  Samuel  Adams,  366, 
367  ;  circulates  thfe  story  that 
Samuel  Adams  is  unfriendly  to 
Washington,  379  ;  helps  to  restore 
the  entente  cordiale  with  the 
French,  381 ;  won  over  by  The- 
ophilus  Parsons  to  support  federal 
constitution,  395  ;  reconciled  with 
Samuel  Adams,  402 ;  death  and 
funeral,  408. 

Harrison.  Benjamin,  his  joke  at  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  349. 

Harvard  College,  befriended  by  Gov 
ernor  Bernard,  141  ;  legislature 
removed  thither  from  1769  to  1772, 
136 ;  celebrates  the  accession  of 
Hutchinson  to  governorship,  187. 

Hawley,  Joseph,  member  of  the 
Assembly  from  Northampton,  92  ; 
his  advanced  ground  in  1766,  96 ; 
his  excitability,  103  ;  steadfast 
against  the  removal  of  the  legis 
lature,  187  ;  aids  in  the  contro 
versy  as  to  parliamentary  au 
thority,  210 ;  in  the  case  of  the 
Hutchinson  letters,  227  ;  favors 
independence,  345 ;  his  usefulness 
crippled  by  his  moodiness  and 
the  remoteness  of  his  home,  356. 

Henry,  Patrick,  his  resolutions  in 
1765,  51  ;  his  speech  at  opening  of 
the  first  Continental  Congress, 
314;  early  ready  for  independ 
ence,  340  ;  opposed  to  the  federal 
constitution,  401. 

Henshaw,  selectman  on  town's  com 
mittee  at  time  of  the  Boston  Mas 
sacre,  171. 

Hillsborough,  Earl  of,  colonial  sec 
retary,  132;  retires  in  1772,  193. 

Hollis,  Thomas,  publishes  in  Eng 
land  "The  True  Sentiments  of 
America."  109. 

House  of  Representatives.  See  As 
sembly. 

Huguenot  families  in  Boston,  5. 

Hutchinson,  Thomas,  in  feud  with 
Samuel  Adams,  Senior,  34;  chief 


INDEX. 


439 


justice  in  17GO,  and  tries  case  of 
the  writs  of  assistance,  42  ;  as  his 
torian,  43  ;  opposed  to  the  Stamp 
Act,  51 ;  suffers  outrage  in  the  riot 
of  17G5,  52  ;  favors  parliament 
ary  representation  of  the  colonies, 
64;  rejeetei  for  the  Council  by 
the  Assembly,  95 ;  pensioned  by 
Hillsborough  in  1767,  102 ,  as  lieu 
tenant-governor,  chief  magistrate 
in  17G9,  145;  summary  of  his  ca 
reer  hitherto,  145, 140, 147  ;  at  the 
Boston  Massacre,  1G4,  etc. ;  be 
comes  governor,  187  ;  at  fault  as 
to  the  Committee  of  Correspond 
ence,  203  ;  controversy  as  to  par 
liamentary  authority,  208,  etc.  ; 
the  Hutchinson  letters,  221,  etc.  ; 
settles  boundary  between  Massa 
chusetts  and  New  York,  225  ;  de 
scribes  Samuel  Adams  to  Lord 
Dartmouth,  240  ;  his  conduct  at 
the  destruction  of  the  tea,  251  ; 
John  Adams's  testimony  to  his 
financial  ability,  his  one  mistake, 
280  ;  his  character,  281,  etc.  ;  his 
farewell  to  Milton  Hill,  282  ;  con 
fiscation  of  his  tomb  and  theft  of 
his  coat  of  arms,  284 ;  good  re 
ception  in  England,  interview 
with  the  king,  285  ;  his  austerity, 
his  love  for  America,  286 ;  his  let 
ter-books,  his  "  Vindication,"  287  ; 
addresses  at  his  departure  from 
merchants  and  lawyers,  289  ;  his 
testimony  to  the  incorruptibility 
of  Samuel  Adams,  301  ;  gives  fact 
as  to  town-meeting  of  March  6, 
1775,  327  ;  testimony  as  to  Samuel 
Adams's  ability  as  a  writer,  362  ; 
as  to  his  early  advocacy  of  inde 
pendence,  372. 

Hutchinson,  Thomas  and  Elisha, 
sons  of  the  governor,  break  the 
non  -  importation  agreement  in 
1770,  156 ;  at  destruction  of  the 
tea,  244. 

INSTRUCTIONS,  Samuel  Adams's  of 
1764  to  representatives,  47  ;  those 
of  S.  and  J.  Adams  in  17G5,  53; 
the  general  doctrine  of  instruc 
tion  to  representatives,  55 ;  from 
the  king  to  crown  officials,  re 
sisted  in  1770,  186,  etc. 

JAY,  JOHN,  at  opening  of  the  first 
Continental  Congress,  315. 

Jay  treaty,  opposed  by  Samuel  Ad 
ams,  409. 


Jefferson,  Thomas,  late  in  favoring 
independence,  345  ;  drafts  the 
Declaration,  348 ;  upon  Samuel 
Adams  as  an  orator,  359 ;  upon 
Samuel  Adams's  ability  as  a  man 
ager,  3G4,  3G5 ;  his  reverence  for 
Samuel  Adams,  412,  413  :  his  lik 
ing  for  the  town  organization,  429. 

I  KNOX,  HENRY,  at  Boston  Massacre, 
163. 

LAND  BANK  SCHEME,  35. 

Lecky,  on  virtual  representation  of 
the  colonies  in  Parliament  in  17G5, 
85. 

Lee,  Arthur,  associated  with  Frank 
lin  as  agent  of  the  Assembly,  190 ; 
correspondent  of  Samuel  Adams, 
196. 

Lee,  Charles,  made  second  in  com 
mand  of  army,  1775,  339. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  correspondent 
of  Samuel  Adams,  328 ;  early 
ready  for  independence,  340  ; 
moves  the  Declaration,  June  5, 
1776,  346  ;  opposed  to  federal  con 
stitution,  401. 

Leonard,  Daniel,  denounces  Commit 
tee  of  Correspondence,  204  ;  able 
Tory  writer,  208  ;  outwitted  by 
Samuel  Adams  at  choosing  of  dele 
gates  to  the  first  Continental  Con 
gress,  293,  etc. 

Liberty,  sloop,  affair  of,  111. 

Liberty  Tree,  243. 

Lincoln,  General,  his  march  to  Pe 
tersham,  392. 

Livingston,  R.  R.,  on  committee  to 
draft  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  348. 

Locke,  John,  member  of  Board  of 
Trade,  27. 

Louisburg,  expedition  to,  19. 

Luzerne,  French  minister,  criticises 
Samuel  Adams  as  obstructing  an 
organized  government,  381. 

Lynde,  judge  of  the  Superior  Court, 
rejected  for  the  Council  by  the 
Assembly,  95. 

MACDOUGALL,  Major  General,  meets 
Samuel  Adams,  312  ;  correspond 
ence  concerning  camp  equipage, 
386. 
Magna  Charta,  a  confirmation  of  old 

privileges,  30. 

i  Mandamus  councilors,  302. 
I  Mansfield,  Lord,   speech  in  debate 
I      on  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act, 


440 


INDEX. 


83 ;  approves  Hutchinson's  course 
in  the  controversy  as  to  parlia 
mentary  authority,  214. 

Massachusetts  leads  the  thirteen 
colonies  in  the  Revolution,  11  ; 
under  the  old  charter,  21  ;  under 
the  new  charter,  22,  etc.  ;  under 
provisional  government,  321,  etc.  ; 
under  the  state  constitution,  376, 
etc. 

Massachusetts  Gazette,  organ  of  the 
Tories,  133. 

Massacre,  Boston,  160,  etc. 

May,  Colonel  Joseph,  tells  how  Sam 
uel  Adams  and  Hancock  were 
won  to  support  the  federal  consti 
tution,  394,  395. 

Mayhew,  Rev.  Jonathan,  8. 

Mechanics  of  Boston,  9. 

Mein,  John,  driven  out  as  a  Tory, 
155. 

Merchants  of  Boston,  8. 

Milton  Hill,  Hutchinson's  farewell 
to  his  home  at,  282. 

Mohawks,  at  the  tea-party,  254. 

Molineux,  William,  on  town's  com 
mittee  at  the  Massacre,  171 ;  at 
destruction  of  the  tea,  244. 

Montague,  Admiral,  commands  Brit 
ish  fleet  in  1771,  191 ;  at  destruc 
tion  of  the  tea,  254.' 

Montgomery,  Major  General,  favor 
ite  of  Samuel  Adams,  341. 

NEWSPAPERS,  of  Boston,  10. 

Non-importation  and  non-consump 
tion  agreements  in  1767,  101 ;  in 
1769,  153  ;  in  1774,  298. 

North,  Lord,  succeeds  Townshend 
as  premier,  102  ;  determined  to 
see  America  at  the  king's  feet, 
132  ;  introduces  the  Tea  Act,  236. 

OLD  SOUTH  CHURCH,  Samuel  Adams, 
Senior,  deacon  of,  15  ;  at  the  time 
of  the  affair  of  the  Liberty,  111 ; 
at  the  time  of  the  Massacre,  1G8, 
etc.  ;  at  the  destruction  of  the 
tea,  247,  etc. ;  on  March  6,  1775, 
324,  etc. 

Old  State  House,  why  interesting, 
59  ;  description  of,  60  ;  at  the  time 
of  the  Massacre,  160,  etc.  ;  the 
battle-ground  of  Samuel  Adams, 
354 ;  at  the  funeral  of  Samuel 
Adams,  416. 

Oliver,  Andrew,  stamp-distributor 
in  1765,  52 ;  rejected  as  secretary 
of  state,  for  the  Council,  by  the 
Assembly,  95 ;  advises  Hutchinson 


to  yield  at  the  time  of  the  Mas 
sacre,  174  ;  becomes  lieutenant- 
governor,  187  ;  connection  with 
the  Hutchinsoii  letters,  222,  224  ; 
his  removal  demanded,  228 ;  his 
sad  fate,  277. 

Oliver,  Peter,  rejected,  as  judge  of 
the  Superior  Court  for  the  Coun 
cil,  by  the  Assembly,  95 ;  as  chief 
justice  refuses  to  decline  the  royal 
grant,  259  ;  efforts  to  impeach 
him,  260. 

Otis,  James,  Senior,  42. 

Otis,  James,  Junior,  his  personal 
appearance,  42;  the  case  of  the 
writs  of  assistance,  44  ;  his  power 
as  an  orator,  readiness  to  sub 
mit  to  the  Stamp  Act,  63;  fa 
vors  parliamentary  representa 
tion  of  the  colonies,  64  ;  at  the 
Stamp  Act  Congress,  72 ;  opens 
debates  of  the  Assembly  to  the 
public,  94 ;  reactionary  in  1767, 
101 ;  his  speech  in  the  affair  of 
the  Liberty.  Ill ;  has  words  with 
Samuel  Adams,  ilC  ;  his  delay  to 
appear  at  the  convention  of  the 
towns  in  1768,  123  ;  assaulted  in 
1769,  148;  his  overbearing  man 
ners,  149 ;  as  a  source  of  embar 
rassment,  150  ;  his  self-seeking, 
151  ;  expresses  aversion  to  the 
soldiers,  160;  reactionary  in  the 
case  of  the  removal  of  the  legisla 
ture,  186  ;  made  chairman  of  the 
Committee  of  Correspondence, 
200;  his  last  appearance  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  201 ;  his  great  powers 
and  his  limitations,  355. 

PAINE,  ROBERT  TREAT,  prosecutes 
soldiers  after  the  Massacre,  183 ; 
elected  delegate  to  the  first  Conti 
nental  Congress,  295;  sets  out, 
309;  favors  conciliation  in  the 
third  Congress,  341. 

Paine,  Thomas,  writes  "Common 
Sense  "  and  the  "  Crisis,"  343. 

Parliament,  controversy  as  to  au 
thority  of,  207,  etc. 

Parsons,  Theophilus,  at  adoption  of 
federal  constitution,  395. 

Paxton,  commissioner  of  customs, 
101  ;  his  connection  with  the 
Hutchinson  letters,  222,  224. 

Pemberton,  selectman,  on  town's 
committee  at  the  time  of  the  Mas 
sacre,  171. 

Per>perell,  Sir  William,  at  Louisburg, 
19. 


INDEX. 


441 


Phillips,  on  town's  committee  at 
time  of  the  Massacre,  171 ;  op 
poses  Committee  of  Correspond 
ence,  197  ;  at  destruction  of  the 
tea,  243. 

Pierpont,  Robert,  member  of  Com 
mittee  of  Correspondence,  257. 

Pitt,  speech  in  the  debate  on  the  re 
peal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  82. 

Pitts,  John,  at  destruction  of  the 
tea,  254 ;  Samuel  Adams  writes  to 
him  describing  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  349. 

Port  Bill,  264  ;  goes  into  effect,  289. 

Pownall,  Thomas,  becomes  governor 
in  1756,  34 ;  defends  America  in 
Parliament,  35,  265. 

Prelacy,  fear  of,  a  main  cause  of  the 
estrangement  of  the  colonies,  27  : 
denounced  by  Samuel  Adams,  104. 

Preston,  Captain  Thomas,  at  Boston 
Massacre,  162;  brought  to  trial, 
183. 

QUAKERS,  oppose  the  Revolution  and 
denounced  by  Samuel  Adams,  344. 

Quebec,  effect  of  its  capture  in  1759, 
39. 

Quebec  Act,  266. 

Queue,  the  dog  of  Samuel  Adams, 
307. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  advocates  armed  re 
sistance  in  1767,  100  ;  defends  the 
soldiers  after  the  Massacre,  183 ; 
his  excessive  vehemence,  205  ; 
counsels  moderation  at  the  de 
struction  of  the  tea,  253  ;  his  un 
timely  death,  334 ;  his  brilliancy 
and  limitations,  356. 

RANDOLPH,  PEYTON,  president  of 
Continental  Congress,  313. 

Read,  Joseph,  praises  policy  of  ask 
ing  Rev.  Mr.  Duche"  to  pray  at 
opening  of  Congress,  316. 

Representation,  theory  of  discussed, 
56  ;  parliamentary,  favored  by 
Otis  and  others,  opposed  by  Sam 
uel  Adams,  64,  etc.  ;  supplanting 
democracy  in  some  parts  of  Amer 
ica,  430. 

Revere,  Huguenot  family,  5  ;  Paul, 
carries  news  of  the  tea-party  to 
Philadelphia,  256  ;  the  patriot 
Mercury,  272  ;  carries  Suffolk  Re 
solves  to  Philadelphia,  318  ;  April 
19, 1775, 330  ;  wins  Samuel  Adams 
to  favor  the  federal  constitution, 
396,  397. 

Right,  petition  of,  of  1628,  30. 


Rights,  Bill  of,  1689,  30. 

Rivington,  Tory,  describes  Samuel 
Adams  and  Hancock,  367. 

Robinson,  commissioner  of  customs, 
assaults  Otis,  148. 

Rockiugham,  Marquis  of,  premier, 
80. 

Romney,  man-of-war,  in  Boston  har 
bor,  17G8,  110. 

Rotch,  Benjimin,  owner  of  the  Dart 
mouth,  247  ;  his  visit  to  Hutchin- 
son  at  destruction  of  the  tea,  253. 

Rup;gles,  Timothy,  president  of 
Stamp  Act  Congress,  72  ;  opposes 
Whigs  in  1768, 108  ;  his  character, 
278. 

Rush,  Dr.  Benjamin,  and  others  ad 
vise  Massachusetts  delegates  to 
first  Continental  Congress,  313. 

Rutledge,  Edward,  and  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence,  348. 

SAGITTARIUS,  Tory  writer,  on  Boston 
town-meeting,  10. 

"Sam  Adams  regiments,"  arrival 
of,  126  ;  their  fine  display,  127 ; 
their  non-interference,  128,  155 ; 
at  the  Massacre,  1GO,  etc. 

Scollay,  John,  selectman,  at  the  tea- 
party,  255. 

Seabury,  Rev.  Mr.,  denounced  by 
Samuel  Adams,  135. 

Seeley,  J.  R.,  his  "Expansion  of 
England  "  quoted,  64. 

Sewall,  Jonathan,  able  Tory  writer, 
208. 

Sewall,  Stephen,  chief  justice,  42. 

Shays's  Rebellion,  389,  etc.  ;  Sam 
uel  Adams  opposes,  391. 

Sherman,  Roger,  early  favors  inde 
pendence,  344;  on  committee  to 
draft  Declaration,  348. 

Shirley,  Governor,  hears  Samuel 
Adams's  Master  of  Arts  oration, 
17;  his  military  activity,  20;  fa 
vors  the  Stamp  Act,  80. 

Shute,  Governor,  opposed  Samuel 
Adams,  Senior,  16 ;  charter 
amended  in  time  of,  24. 

Slavery,  in  Massachusetts,  7. 

Smith,  Adam,  favors  parliamentary 
representation  of  the  colonies,  64. 

Snyder,  Christopher,  death  of,  159. 

Stamp  Act,    introduced,  50 ;    goea 

into  operation,  73  ;  repeal  of,  91. 
I  Stamp  Act  Congress,  72. 

Strong,  Gov.  Caleb,  does  honor  to 

Samuel  Adams,  411. 
|  Sugar  Act,  passage  of,  28 ;  enforce- 

i      moat  of,  40. 


442 


INDEX. 


Sullivan,  Wm.,  describes  Governor 

Bowdoin,  391. 
Surry,    negro    servant    of     Samuel 

Adams,  306. 
Sylvester,  Richard,  his  description 

of  Samuel  Adams,  117. 

TEA,  duty  on  retained  in  1769,  157  ; 
act  for  sending  to  America,  May, 
1773, 236  ;  destruction  of,  243,  etc. 

Temple,  commissioner  of  customs, 
1767,  102. 

Thacher,  Oxenbridge,  in  case  of 
writs  of  assistance,  43  ;  his  death, 
54 ;  abused  by  Otis,  149. 

Thurlow,  Lord  Chancellor,  approves 
Hutchinson's  course,  214 ;  favors 
oppression  of  colonies,  267. 

Tories,  to  be  judged  compassion 
ately,  274;  their  stake  in  the 
country,  refinement,  and  real  pa 
triotism,  275  ;  often  of  honorable 
note,  277  ;  their  arrogance  at  the 
coming  of  Gage,  291 ;  their  last 
effort  to  stem  the  Revolution, 
298 ;  estimates  of  Samuel  Adams 
by,  365,  etc.  ;  Samuel  Adams  im 
placable  towards,  388. 

Towns  in  Massachusetts  at  the  Rev 
olution,  2. 

Town-meetings,  a  revival  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  folk-mote,  1 ;  descrip 
tion  of  at  the  Revolution,  2  ;  rela 
tion  of  to  the  Assembly,  54,  etc.  ; 
reluctant  to  delegate  power,  55 ;  in 
Boston  the  most  interesting  man 
ifestation  in  history  of  the  folk- 
mote,  Samuel  Adams  the  man  of, 
352  ;  reports  there  is  no  defect  in, 
389  ;  influences  at  present  modi 
fying  in  New  England  and  else 
where,  foreign  admixture,  419  ; 
the  growth  of  cities,  420  ;  descrip 
tion  of,  to-day,  422  ;  preciousness 
of,  427,  428  ;  its  decay,  429. 

Towushend.  Charles,  his  three  meas 
ures  affecting  America,  99. 

Trade  regulations,  a  cause  of  es 
trangement,  29. 

Trowbridge,  as  attorney-general  re 
jected  for  the  Council  by  the  As 
sembly,  95;  as  judge  of  the  Su 
perior  Court,  refuses  royal  grant, 
259. 

UNIFICATION,  political,  desirable,  65. 

VICE-ADMIRALTY,  courts  of,  24. 
ViomtSnil,  Baron,  at  Boston,  388. 
Virginia,  resolves  of  1769,  137 ;  in 


augurates  intercolonial  Commit 
tees  of  Correspondence ,  218  ;  ca&ts 
fifteen  votes  for  Samuel  Adams  as 
President  in  the  electoral  college 
in  1796,  409. 
Virtual  representation,  84. 

WARD,  of  Rhode  Island,  favors  inde 
pendence,  344. 

Warren,  James,  letter  of  Samuel 
Adams  to,  on  the  Massacre,  180 ; 
at  election  of  delegates  to  first 
Continental  Congress,  294  ;  favors 
independence,  345. 

Warren,  Joseph,  arraigns  Bernard 
in  the  Boston  Gazette,  107 ;  on 
town's  committee  at  time  of  the 
Massacre,  171  ;  vehement  against 
the  soldiers,  184  ;  favors  the  Com 
mittee  of  Correspondence,  197  ; 
drafts  in  part  its  manifesto,  201 ; 
his  excessive  vehemence,  204 ;  at 
destruction  of  the  tea,  244,  255 ; 
manages  the  Port  Bill  meeting, 
292;  author  of  "Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  "  against  using  Brit 
ish  productions,  298  ;  arranges  for 
the  Suffolk  Convention  in  1774, 
305;  the  Suffolk  Resolves,  317; 
town-meeting  of  March  6,  1775, 
325,  etc.  ;  becomes  leader  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  334;  death  and  char 
acter,  337,  338;  does  not  desire 
independence,  345  ;  his  limita 
tions,  356. 

Washington,  nominated  comman 
der- in-chief,  335 ;  treated  cor 
dially  by  Samuel  Adams,  339; 
does  not  at  first  favor  independ 
ence,  345 ;  compared  with  Sam 
uel  Adams,  374;  Samuel  Adams 
never  his  enemy,  377. 

Wells,  Elizabeth,  second  wife  of 
Samuel  Adams,  50  ;  her  efficiency, 
50  ;  letter  to  her  husband,  342. 

Wilson,  of  Pennsylvania,  opposes 
independence,  342. 

Wolcott,  Oliver,  favors  independ 
ence,  344. 

Writs  of  assistance,  the  case  of,  41. 

Wyeth,  of  Virginia,  favors  independ 
ence,  343. 

YONGE,  C.  D.,  English  constitutional 
historian,  on  parliamentary  right 
to  tax,  85. 

Young,  Arthur,  on  the  Acts  of  Trade, 
29. 

Young,  Dr.  Thomas,  at  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  tea,  255. 


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